


Transition

by leveragus



Series: The Sam Ford Chronicles [2]
Category: Leverage
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-01
Updated: 2013-06-14
Packaged: 2017-12-13 16:27:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 15
Words: 25,839
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/826354
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leveragus/pseuds/leveragus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is version of season 2 with Sam still alive. It's the sequel of my A Simple Gesture that Change Everything, but it can be read as a stand alone fic.</p><p>Written for the bigbangjob 2013. Thanks to ultra_fic for the amazing art for this story.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

"Dad come on, it's time to get up"

Nate groaned as he felt someone shaking him awake from his slumber sleep. "What?" he muttered.

"It's my first day at the new school and you have a job interview" Sam stood beside his father's bed hands on his hips looking him with a disapproval glare typical of a pre-teenager.

"What time is it?" he sat up running a hand over his sleepy face.

"It's half-past seven. You've got twenty minutes to get ready."

"Oh damn. " Nate quickly got up, now fully alert. "The alarm clock didn't go off," he rushed to the bathroom to get washed. "Why didn't you wake me up earlier?" he slurred with a toothbrush in his mouth while he was trying to brush his teeth and shave at the same time. Their new life in Boston wasn't really starting in the best of ways.

After he quickly got dressed in the suit he had prepared the day before, he went straight to the kitchen for a cup of coffee and a hurried bite of toast. Sam was sitting at the table going through the last few days of mail. A white envelope caught his attention and he eagerly opened it.

"Hey Dad, check this out," he passed him the invitation inside.

Nate grabbed the piece of paper and read through it while sipping his coffee. He nearly choked with the hot beverage once he had got to the bottom. Inside there was a leaflet:

_The State Street Playhouse_  
presents  
The Sound of Music  
with Sophie Devereaux in the role of Maria 

"There's a letter inside too," Sam started reading from it before Nate had the chance to snatch it from his son's hands. "Dear Nate and Sam, how are you? I hope you're doing okay. On Monday the 1st of September will be the opening of my new theatre play. There will be two tickets waiting for you at the desk. I really hope you can make it. See you soon, love Sophie."

Nate sighed. Of course he hadn't heard from that woman for nearly six months now and she just sends an invitation from out of the blue.

"That's tonight," Sam exclaimed enthusiastically. "We're going, right Dad?"

Nate looked at his son's happy expression and he knew he wasn't going to be able to say no to him. He hadn't seen him so happy since they had separated. In the months following their leaving L.A. and before moving to Boston, they had gone for a long father and son vacation visiting most parts of the US and stopping at Disney World too. But even though Nate knew Sam had enjoyed it, there was still the spark missing from his eyes. He knew that his son hadn't been happy about his decision to split the team and move on without them. In the year they had spent together with the band of thieves, they had become great friends if not even family. Sam had learned to horse-ride from Eliot and the two of them had sometimes gone to the hitter's ranch for the week-end. Nate was sure that the hitter had also taught him some defense moves, even though he hadn't been really happy with the idea. Sam could have had always counted on Hardison on getting him the latest mobile phone model or a computer game that had just come out and, the hacker had been like the big brother he never had and they would spent afternoons playing together. Then there had been Parker. Strangely, the thief had connected with the mastermind's son. Sam saw her as a big sister and Parker was always so protective towards him. And last but not least, Sophie. While Nate had been struggling with his drinking, Sophie had been the only stable parental figure in Sam's life. After Maggie had died in a car accident, Nate didn't think Sam was going to connect with anyone else again, but the young boy had been smitten with the grifter . Like father, like son. That was what brought him to the decision, after he had been shot in Juan during a job, to entrust Sophie to be Sam's guardian if anything should ever happen to him. He knew that his son was going to be in good hands.

"Dad?" Sam interrupted his thoughts.

"I don't know, buddy, It's a school night." He went to the kitchen sink to rinse the mug.

"But we can't miss it." The ten years old whined. "It's Sophie. Did you know she was in town?"

"No, I didn't," Nate shook his head, still wondering why the grifter hadn't tried to contact them earlier.

"We can't not go. It would be rude. It's only the second day of school, it's not like we're doing much. Plus, I miss her, I want to see her."

Nate still didn't look convinced. He would be lying if he said he didn't want to go and that he missed her too, but he knew that going there that evening was going to open the door to series of troubles.

"Okay," he finally agreed.

"Yes!" Sam jumped, his fist in the air.

"Now, let's go. We're already late as it is."

After he had dropped Sam at his new school and made sure he was okay, Nate drove towards Boston Assurance where he had his job interview. He parked the car on the first empty spot, but he didn't make a move to exit the vehicle. He leaned forward and watched the tall dull empty building from the front window. He sighed. It reminded him so much of IYS and the bad memories that went with it. He took a big breath and finally got out of his black car.  
The receptionist at the desk told him that the manager was waiting for him at the 24th floor, and Nate made his way to the lifts. He nodded to the people inside the cabin, but for the rest of the ride he kept to himself, never being the socializing type. When he reached his floor he stepped outside.

"Ah, Mister Ford," a middle age man greeted him.

"Mister Brumby." Nate shook his hand with his tight and false smile.

"Please follow me, I'll be happy to give you a tour of the facility." He gestured with his hand and Nate followed the skinny man through the narrow corridors.

"I've read your file. You found that stolen Monet in Florence, saved your company a $25 million payout. That identity-theft case, you saved $15 million. So, what have you been up to for the last year? It didn't say in your CV."

"Working with individual clients. Confidential," Nate tried to answer vaguely. He so needed this job to give more stability to Sam.

"Nice. Solving rich people's problems. It couldn't have been easy after all your personal problems."

Of course he knew, everybody seemed to know. It was something that is going to follow him everywhere.

"Actually, the other way around." He smirked.

Brumby looked at him in question "Hmm?"

But Nate just kept smiling.

"Well, glad to have you here. Welcome back to the insurance game. Great, there's lots of files I'd like you to review from our international branches. Bangkok, London, Madrid, Mexico City, Los Angeles. Let's start you as a consultant, work high-profile recoveries on a commission basis, and get you an office, maybe..."

The manager kept talking, but Nate wasn't listening. He looked at all the bored people working around him. They all seemed machines without life, emptiness in their eyes. Everything was running in slow motion. The file dropping, a telephone ringing in the distant, an employee walking to his cubicle... he knew he couldn't do this. He couldn't go back to his old life. Without even realizing what he was doing he turned around and left hearing the manager behind him asking him where he was going.

He quickly got out of Boston Assurance walked towards his car, but something caught his eye. An insignia of a bar at the other side of the road. He stared at it for a long moment. He kept thinking of all he had to go through to stop drinking. The first weeks after they left L.A., Nate had sent Sam to his former in-laws so he could go through alcohol withdrawal without worrying about his son seeing him at his lowest point. He could still remember the sleepless nights that he had spent hallucinating and in delirium and the days he would shake and have cold sweats, craving for a drink. It was like reliving the con the team did at the rehabilitation center, but even worse. But after a week he had slowly got better and now he hadn't had a drink for nearly five months.

He so wanted to walk away, he needed to walk away, but something was dragging him across the street. He was already loosening his tie and unbuttoning his collar when a car going out of control hit a parked truck and flipped in the air right above his head. He ducked and saw the car landing on its top and catching fire. Without thinking twice about it he rushed towards it to check the people trapped inside. He kneeled next the passenger seat to his a girl about Sam's age. He opened the door and helped her get out.

"I've got you," he reassured the girl. He picked her up and carried her away from the car.

"Are you okay?" he helped her to her feet.

She nodded. "Yes, but my dad."

He turned around to see a bulky man approaching the car. He thought her was going to help the girl's father, but instead he opened the back door and stole a briefcase.

"Hey," Nate shouted after him but the man in baggy clothes and a cap just ran away. Nate shook his head and went to try and save the man still trapped inside the car.

The car was catching fire fast and soon it was going to exploded. He didn't have much time left. He unbuckled the man's seatbelt and dragged him outside. Together they ran to the side of the street, a big explosion behind them nearly stopping their run.

"Dad," The girl rushed to her father and put her arms around him.

"It's okay, baby," He patted her back before collapsing on the floor.

Soon the fire trucks arrived, followed by a couple of ambulances and police cars.

Nate spent the rest of the morning giving a statement to the police. Even though he had told them that he was fine, a police officer insisted that he got checked by a doctor.

He hated hospitals and it really was the last place he wanted to be.

After he had been cleared by the doctors, he was making his way to the lifts. He wanted to check that both father and daughter were okay. The phone inside his jacket started ringing.

"Dad, where are you? You were supposed to pick me up."

Nate checked the time and cursed mentally when he saw that it was already that time.

"Sorry, buddy. Something happened..." He didn't want to worry his son.

"What?"

He sighed. "I'm at the hospital..."

"What?" This time he heard his son shouting worriedly.

"I'm okay, don't worry, there has been an accident involving a girl and her father. It's too long to explain. I will give Cora a call and ask her if she can come and pick you up. I'll meet you at home when I'm done."

After making sure his father was really fine, Sam closed the call and waited for Cora to arrive. Of course the boy had no intention to wait for his father back at their apartment. And after a lot of convincing, Cora sighed and drove the boy to the hospital.

Back at the hospital, Nate was talking to the doctor who was following the victims of the crash.

"The father is still in surgery, but the daughter is in a room. You can go and visit her, if you'd like."

Nate nodded and made his way to the girl's room. He noticed two men standing outside the room. The short and balding man turned towards him when he saw him approaching them.

"Hi, I'm Glenn Leary. I'm Matt's boss at the bank." He introduced himself. "I'm sorry. This is Lieutenant Bonanno of the State Police." He pointed at the tall and well-built man next to him.

Nate looked at the detective curiously. "State Police? A car crash downtown usually involves Boston P.D."

"It does, doesn't it?" Bonanno smirked like he was hiding a well-kept secret. "Good job on saving those people," he said before leaving.

"Apparently Matt called him to set a meeting."

Now Nate got more curious; maybe it hadn't been a simple accident. "Something at the bank?"

Leary frowned. "How? There isn't even going be a bank after Friday. We work at First Boston Independent. We're going under. At the end of the week, the government's going come in, write one last check for all our bad assets, and that's it." He got closer to Nate and whispered. "I think it was caused by his drinking. All these problems at work and then he passing of his wife. You know what a mess people are when they drink"

Oh, he certainly did. He nodded at Leary who just walked away.

"Dad!" Sam shouted after him.

Nate quickly turned on his feet. "Sam? I thought I've told you to wait at home" He saw Cora walking behind the boy giving him an apologetic look. It wasn't easy saying no to Sam.

"I wanted to make sure you were really okay. What happened?"

"Nothing you should worry about." He smiled at the young Irish girl, who he considered a niece. "Thanks Cora, I'll take it from here."

"Okay, see you later at the pub," She waved at them as she walked away.

"Something's wrong with the car." They heard a faint voice coming from the hospital room on their right.

"Hey," Nate walked inside followed by Sam. "Are you feeling better?"

"It went real fast, and then the brakes..." She started crying.

Nate laid a comforting hand on her arm. "Listen, there's a detective. I could call him…"

"No, something was wrong with the car," She repeated more agitated.

"Okay, okay. Now sleep."

The girl closed her eyes and soon fell asleep.

Sam looked at her curiously. "What was she talking about?"

"I don't know…" Nate looked down at her apprehensively. "Something about the car accident."

"Well, she clearly needs our help. You're going to help her, right Dad?"

Nate shook his head. "Sam, I'm not in that business anymore."

"But you could be…" he smirked.

He smirked back. "Come on," He put an arm around his son shoulders. "Let's go ready for our tonight's appointment with culture."


	2. Chapter 2

A couple of hours later, they were entering the theatre. It was quite full and they slowly and awkwardly made their way towards the center of the hall.

"Picking up for one." A familiar voice caught their attention.

"Last name?"

"Parker."

"First name?"

"No. Just one name."

"Parker!" Sam exclaimed with a big smile.

Parker spun around surprised. "Sam!"

The boy rushed towards her and gave her hug. "I've missed you."

Parker awkwardly stood there not knowing where to put her hands, then she lightly patted his back.

"Hello Parker," Nate approached the two with a smirk.

"Nate," she smiled back.

"Hey guys," Hardison came from behind them.

"Hardison," Sam let go of Parker and ran towards the hacker.

"Hey buddy," They fist bumped and high fived. "It's been long. The only one missing is…"

"All right. After the show, then. I'll see you." The sound of the hitter's laughter from across the hall drawn their attention.

"Eliot!"

The hitter rolled his eyes when he saw the group. "I see you're all here."

"She didn't tell me you were all going to be here." Parker frowned. "When did you move here?"

"I'm actually here as a pit stop." Eliot said. "Six months of traveling. Did a couple of big jobs…"

"Me too. I've been great," Hardison shrugged.

"My Dad and I actually moved here some months ago. When did Soph…"

"Oh, you all made it." He was interrupted by Sophie Devereaux hopping towards them happily.

"Sophie," Sam hugged her tight. "I've missed you so much."

"I've missed you too, my little man," Sophie closed her eyes and hugged him fiercely. When she opened her eyes again they met Nate's. Her heart skipped a beat. He looked good, better than how she had left him six months before. In that small instant she knew that even though she had tried to move on during the last months, a big part of her heart would always be with the man standing in front of her.

Sam let go of her and noticed how Sophie and her father were still looking at each other.

"Nate," she almost whispered. She then leaned forward to kiss his check and he awkwardly put an arm around her.

"It's good to see you, Sophie," his words stumbling. "These are for you," he gave her a bunch of flowers that he had been holding the whole time.

"Thanks. They're wonderful."

He blushed. "Sam insisted on them."

"At least one of the Ford's is still a gentleman," she teased ruffling Sam's hair with one of her hands.

"Sophie, someone was looking for you." A tall distinguish man with a nicely trimmed beard came from behind her and put an arm around her.

Nate tensed on his feet, he soon recognized the intimate gesture of the man.

Sophie put a hand on the man's chest. "Thanks, sweetheart," she smiled at him, but once she felt the others' eyes on her, she looked down embarrassed and took a step back from him. She avoided making eyes contact with them, but for a brief moment her eyes met Sam's and she could read the hurt and disappointment in them.

Hardison cleared his throat. "And… this is?"

The young man smiled and put his hand forward. "I'm Brian"

"Yeah, he's…"

"I'm Sophie's boyfriend."

"Ah, of course."

"Sophie," Someone called the grifter from the backstage.

"I must go now. We're going to meet up afterwards, right?" she rushed away, singing some out of tune notes.

After the play, they all waited for Sophie to walk out from the backstage after she had changed out of her stage clothes so they could go out for a drink. The play had been... interesting. Eliot and Hardison thought it was torture, Parker laughed during the whole play, even Sam, who admired Sophie, had to admit that the grifter was really an awful actress. The only one who had seemed to enjoyed the play was Nate. Probably because his brain had completely shut out the words and songs, but concentrating on Sophie's movements, and the whole time he kept wondering how serious she was with that new boyfriend of hers. Now he knew he had been so stupid to turn down her advances all those months before and to then break her heart when he had told her it was over between. Not like anything had ever happened between them, only a couple of stolen kisses in Paris and the promise of a first date that had never come.  
The former team wanted to have a reunion by themselves, but Brian had managed to invite himself in their small gathering, so they were now awkwardly sitting around the table, knowing that most of their topics of conversation were off limits.

"Are you ready to order?"

"Yes," Nate exclaimed a bit too eagerly. "Thank you Cora," he smiled at the young woman and Sophie slightly raised one of her eyebrows. "The usual for me."

"Ginger Ale it is," she took note. "Sam, a glass of coke?"

"Yes, please."

After they all had ordered, Cora left telling them that she was going to come back with their drinks in a moment.

"Ginger Ale?" Parker asked surprised. The other turned curiously towards Nate too.

"What?" He shrugged. "I quit drinking."

"You quit drinking?" Eliot repeated both incredulously and in amusement.

"Sure did."

"Dad hasn't had a drink in five months now" Sam confirmed, proud of his Dad.

"If you quit drinking? How do you know about this place, then?" Hardison asked.

"I rent a condo upstairs."

" You rent a condo above a bar?"

" That's right."

" Well, that's very... Catholic."

"It's more family related." Nate left it vaguely.

Suddenly Sophie's phone beeped. "Uggghhh..."

"What's wrong love?" Brian put an arm around the grifter when she hid her face in her hands.

"The play," They heard her mumble.

"Yeah, you know, I'm sure the reviews will be..." Hardison intervened. Sophie handed him her phone " …on the news website already."

Parker quickly grabbed the phone "Really? Wow. "Never before has a production of 'The Sound Of Music' made me root for the Nazis." The costumes were really

great." She tried to make her feel better.

"No. No, no, no. Stop it. There is nothing you can say that's going make me feel better. Let's forget about it," she closed the phone and put on a brave smile.

"I thought you were great, Sophie," Sam lied to her. He knew she could read him like an open book, but maybe a small white lie would help.

"My only fan," she smiled at him a caressed his arm affectionately.

"I thought that was me," Nate told her, looking at her in the eyes, a secret conversation going between them.

Brian coughed nervously interrupting the intimate moment between his girlfriend and the man she obviously had a history with. "So what do you guys do?"

"Well..."

"Nothing interesting..."

"What do you mean?"

Were three separate answers from the hacker, hitter and thief.

"What do you do?" Sam eyed the young intruder. He wasn't so happy that he was there to ruin his plans to bring Sophie and his Dad together... for the second time, but the boy loved a challenge.

"I'm an assistant professor at Boston College," he took a sip of his drink hiding the smirk of superiority behind the rim of his glass. "And you Nate?" He asked and they all noticed the slight animosity intonation just because they were all professional grifters.

Sophie tensed beside Brian. She knew that Brian and Nate weren't going to like each other, but she hoped that would have tried to get along for her or at least tried to hide their hatred better.

"I used to work for an insurance company."

"And now?"

"I'm full-time Dad."

"And he's also a hero," Sam retorted back. "Dad saved a man and his daughter from a car accident this morning." And as he said this he remembered something. "In fact we might have found a job..."

"Sam," Nate interrupted him. "That's enough." He drank the rest of his drink in one big sip and got up. "We need to leave now, you've got school tomorrow."

"But Dad..." Sam whined.

"Now!"

Reluctantly, Sam got up from his chair. "You guys aren't going away soon, are you? We will see each other again?"

"Sure man."

"You can count on it."

Parker shrugged. " I've got nothing else to do."

"Sophie?" Sam asked eagerly.

Sophie got up and hugged the little boy. "I'm living here in Boston now, so we're going to see each other so much that you'll be tired of seeing my face all the time"

"It was great to see all of you." Nate said, his eyes lingering on the grifter, "Good night."

He put a hand on Sam's back and together they walked away.

"We should probably go too, Sophie," Brian got up from his chair.

Sophie looked at her friend's faces. "Why don't you go?" She gave him her best conning smile. "We haven't really talked."

Brian didn't really want to leave without her, but he knew that he was going to lose that battle. He slowly nodded and leaned down to kiss her cheek. "I will call you tomorrow." And he left.

As soon as he was out of sight, Hardison laughed. "Where did you find that tool?"

Sophie glared at him with a small smirk on her lips. "He's good guy."

"I didn't know you were in to cougar town," Eliot added teasingly and Parker laughed.

"Eliot!" Sophie exclaimed in outrage. "He is not that young. I mean, I'm not that old!"

"If you still feel bad about the play," Parker suddenly changed subject. "I know what could make you better. We should steal something."

"Yes!" Sophie exclaimed suddenly excited. "We could do it together."

"I like this. Get right back up on the bike."

"Bike of crime. I stole the Hope Diamond, but it wasn't fun without you guys," Parker told them "So then I put it back. Yeah, 'cause I was bored. Didn't care."

The other shook their heads at her rolling their eyes.

"I spent three days hacking the white house e-mail. No buzz. But we are doing some pretty hinky stuff in Pakistan. Hinky."

Sophie turned to Eliot, "What have you been doing the last six months?"

" I was in Pakistan." He looked uncomfortable.

"See what Nate did? He took the world's best criminals, hitter, hacker, grifter, thief, he took us, and he broke us." Hardison rambled

"Exactly." Parker agreed.

"He taught us how to be better," Sophie whispered nearly to herself.

"This is the problem, with being the good guy. It gets under your skin." Eliot added.

"Sam did mention something about a possible job before Nate interrupted him."

Sophie looked at Parker, her eyes lighting up. "Yeah, something about a car accident this morning."

"Hardison."

The hacker was already working on his mobile phone. "I'm on it..."

Suddenly they heard the bar front door burst opened and the alarms in their heads went off as they jumped in their seats. There at the door was Sam Ford bent in two trying to catch his breath.

"Sam," Sophie rushed to him put her hands on his shoulders. "What happened?" She asked alarmed.

"My Dad," He said between breaths. "He needs help"

The others were already running towards the backdoor entrance, Eliot first of all ready for a fight.


	3. Chapter 3

_Fifteen minutes earlier_

"It was good seeing everyone else," Sam said as he walked next to his father.

"Yes, it was," Nate agreed.

"Why did you interrupted me when I mentioned Zoe and her father?"

"It's nothing that concerns them. Also, not everyone should have listened to what we really do."

"Oh," Sam tilted his head down. "Brian, that douche bag."

"Sam, words..." Nate warned him, but he was glad his son didn't like the man either.

"What does Sophie see in him?" He frowned in disgust.

"She just wants someone next to her. Someone who loves her."

"We love her." He looked up at Nate. "You love her Dad. You could be there for her."

Nate sighed. "I wish things were so simple, Sam."

They reached their apartment door 2A. Nate was about to open it with his key when he noticed that door was already open. He put an arm forward stopping Sam and pushing him behind him.

"Stay here," He ordered, whispering.

He slowly pushed the door further open and took a step further inside the apartment. As soon as he let go, everything else after happened in the matter of seconds. Someone jumped him from behind the door and attacked him with a knife but he managed to block his assaulter's arm just before he hit him.

"Sam, run." He shouted to his son who was still standing in the hall shocked. "Hurry!" He added struggling with the thug.

Sam soon took off, hoping that the others were still down at the bar.

Nate pushed the man and managed to have him against with his back against the wall. He finally had a good look at the invader and he recognized him from the man at the accident.

"What do you want from me?" he hissed.

The big thug kicked him in the leg and Nate lost his grip on his arms. That was all the thug needed to liberate himself and try again to attack Nate. This time his knife penetrated Nate's clothes and skin, stabbing him on his abdomen.

"Nate!" Shouts came from outside.

The thug pull the knife out of Nate's body and without looking back he started running on the opposite direction of the voices.  
Nate put his left hand on his right side and it soon got covered with his own blood and he slipped down the kitchen counter until he was sitting on the floor in pain.

"Nate," Eliot stumbled outside. He soon saw his friend bleeding on the floor. "Damn." He rushed to him.

Parker and Hardison arrived at the door frame and saw the scene in front of them, gasping.

"Dad!" Sam crashed into Parker's side as he ran to them, followed by Sophie.

"Keep him outside," Eliot shouted as he helped the mastermind off the floor. Parker put both her arms around Sam stopping him from going inside.

Nate hissed in pain but with the hitter's help, he managed to slowly walk to the couch.

"Hardison, need some help here," Eliot grunted. He pushed Nate to lie on the couch and ripped his shirt open to check the stab wound.

"Oh man, you know I get all squishy inside when I see blood."

"Blood?" Sam shouted, scared. "I want to see my father!" He tried to get free from Parker's grip.

Eliot glared at Hardison who soon felt guilty. "Way to go, Hardison! I just need a medical kit. Nate, where do you keep it?" He asked the mastermind who was losing consciousness from the blood lost.

"Downstairs... bathroom..." He whispered.

Hardison quickly went to check all the downstairs rooms until he found the bathroom and got the medical kit from the cabin and took it to Eliot.

Sophie slowly made her way inside and closer to the couch scared to see Nate bleeding. "Eliot?"

The hitter understood all the questions behind his name. How bad is it? Is he going to make it?

He cleaned the wound and started to check for major damage.

Nate shouted in pain, making everyone cringed, especially Sam who was still holding Parker. Soon the mastermind passed out.

"It's a bad stab wound but he's going to be okay," He told her.

Sophie nodded and kneeled beside Nate's head and she caressed his hair damp from his sweat.

After Eliot had stitched him up and bandage the wound, he nodded to Parker signaling he that they could come inside now.

Sam soon rushed to his father side. He scared him to see him so vulnerable laying on the couch nearly lifeless. Sophie put a comforting arm around him. "He's going to be alright. Don't you worry," she reassured him.

She knew that it wasn't easy for the young boy to see his father like that, especially since his mother had already been taken away from him two years earlier.

"Sam," Eliot spoke to the boy. "We need to know what happened. Did you see the man who assaulted Nate?"

Sam took his eyes off his father and looked at hitter. He slowly nodded and told them the whole story. In a matter of minutes Hardison found out that the thug  
had been on the accident site that morning too stealing the briefcase. Hardison and Parker worked on the evidence they had, trying to connect the facts. How was the Kerrigan's car accident and Nate's assault related?

"Sam," Sophie ran a hand through the boy's hair. He was trying his best to keep his eyes open, but the grifter noticed that he was exhausted. "It's time for you to go to bed. You've got school tomorrow. It's way past your bed time."

"I'm not going to school tomorrow." He stated.

"I don't think your father would want you to miss a day already," She pointed out to him.

"I don't care," He shrugged. "Someone tried to kill my father tonight, I think that's a good excuse."

"The kid has a point," Hardison smirked.

"I didn't go to school and turned out perfectly fine," Parker said munching at some cereal.

"You've got a strange definition on fine," Eliot shook his head. "The kid needs an education."

"All the things I need to know, I've learned them from the street."

"Yes... well... " Sophie tried to bring the conversation back to the main point. "You're tired. Go upstairs and get ready for bed. I'll come and check on you in a bit. We'll see about school."

Sam turned his head towards his dad.

"Don't worry, we'll stay here with him."

The spend the rest of the night taking turns on keeping an eye on the mastermind. Since he passed out, he still hadn't regained consciousness. Sophie was concerned about it, but Eliot assured that it was normal and not to get worried about it yet.  
They had continued to work on the case and slowly putting the pieces together they'd found. Sophie had woken Sam up and told him it was best for him to go to school. The boy had protested but at the end the grifter won. Eliot cooked breakfast for everyone and then he drove Sam to his school. When he came back, they heard moans coming from the couch.

Nate was slowly waking up. He had a really bad headache, but nothing compared to the sharp pain at his side. He tried to sit up, but a gentle hand on his shoulder stopped him.

"Careful Nate, you don't want to rip off your stitches already."

He opened his eyes to find Sophie leaned over him. He couldn't help to notice how beautiful she was in the early morning even after an obviously sleepless night.

"Why are you wearing one of my shirts?"

She chuckled. "Really? That's the first thing you say." She got up from where she was sitting on the edge of the couch and walked to the kitchen counter to get a glass of water and handed it to him.

"Why are you all here?" He tried again.

"Someone tried to kill you last night." Eliot pointed out. "They came pretty close, you've lost quite a lot of blood."

Memories of the previous night came back to him. "Where's Sam?" He asked, a bit panicking.

"Relax. He's at school. Took a lot of convincing, but he never could say no to me," Sophie smiled.

He sighed. "I appreciate what you've all did, but there's no need for you to remain here. You can leave if you want." He slowly got up wincing at the pain and putting a hand on his bandage.

"Yeah, because you're doing so great," Hardison comment sarcastically. "Aren't you curious to know why someone tried to kill you?"

"Not really, no," Nate shook his head.

He finally noticed that Parker was dressed as a Nun. He stared at her and she smirked at him. He shook his head and kept walking to the kitchen cabin.

Hardison ignored him and continued talking. "Thanks to Sam's description of the man that attacked you, I've compared it with the footage of camera surveillance from the car accident and look," He turned his computer so he could see. "He was there!" He smirked.

"Yes, I know. I recognized him."

"Yes, well. Do you realize, on average, people are caught on security cameras 13 times a day? ATM cameras, traffic cameras. It's crazy, man, but we can track him. We can. Well, I lost him in this alley."

"But when I was driving back from taking Sam to school, I found this empty briefcase belonging to a Matt Kerrigan at that intersection." Eliot showed him the black briefcase.

"It's Boston Commonwealth Bank, right?"

" No, First Independent Boston. That's where Kerrigan works." Nate answered even though he was trying not to get involved in the conversation.

"Who's this guy?" Eliot pointed to the monitor.

"You don't know, do you? That's Kerrigan's boss, that guy. Leary." He shook his head. He wasn't going to fall for it "Whatever."

"Alright, who's the other guy?" Eliot continued.

"It's not clear enough for facial recognition."

"Yeah, well, the problem is, these two cats went down to the safety deposit boxes."

"Which is the only room in every bank, with absolutely no cameras." Parker exclaimed her face already showing her happiness.

"Which means we're up, baby." Hardison got up from his chair and put a priest's collar on "They tried to kill Kerrigan for what was in the briefcase. We're gonna steal it back."

"She was dressed that way 'cause she's doing a con."

"What," Nate shrugged, "You thought she was dressed like a nun for no reason?"

"It's Parker."

"Guys," Nate sighed. "I know this seems like one of our old jobs, we all agreed that we'd just move on. It was great. It was fun. It was wonderful while it lasted, but I was drunk most of the time, to be honest with you. And I… A little crazy. I really, I owe all of you, you've helped me a lot with Sam and I'm very proud of what we did. I..I really am. But I got my life back, and I intend to keep it that way. And I am not a thief."

"Nate, that girl and her father need our help," Sophie told him, "It's what we do, it's what you taught us to do. Don't tell me you don't miss it?" She looked at him knowingly.

Nate looked her straight into her deep brown eyes. Of course she knew, she knew everything, he couldn't hide it from her. This was what had stopped him from accepting that job the day before, this rush for conning people and make the bad guys pay.  
He wasn't ready to let her know she was right yet. "I'm going to get cleaned up." He said as he slowly walked up the stairs. "We'll talk about it later"

"Watch your bandage!" Eliot shouted after him.

Hardison and Parker left for the bank while Sophie and Eliot stayed behind.

"Are you going?"

"You're joking?" Eliot chuckled. "The man's got 700 sports channels."

She rolled her eyes and muttered "Men."

 

Later that afternoon, Hardison and Parker were back from the Bank, and they were all sitting, including Sam, on the couches in the sitting room. Only one was missing.

"Where's Eliot?" The boy asked.

"Oh, I've sent it him to check out something." Hardison was working on his computer and then something came up on the TV screen. "So, this is one we've got so far. This is what Kerrigan found. The deeds from '75 to '77. 20 businesses all started in the late '70s. Now, here's where it gets weird. All the financials for, what, 30 years, squeaky clean. Taxes paid, employees withholding often and early. Until the last six months. That's when they took out crazy-bad business loans, refinanced mortgages with high interest rates. I'm talking big loans, too. Add it up, it's a couple million." He showed some slides.

"That's Brandon O'Hare," Nate interrupted him.

"Yeah, I'll run him through the database."

"There's no need. We grew up in the same neighborhood. The O'Hares are mobs, we're talking about mob business here."

"Oh, oh!" Parker exclaimed.

"Call Eliot," Nate shot a glare at the hacker.

The hitter picked up at the second ring. "What?" He snapped. He was still looking through some boxes. This is the third place I checked. It's all the same."

"Eliot, those are mob places."

"What do you mean mob?"

"Hey," he turned around to see three guys approaching him. One of them was the guy that stabbed Nate. Every fiber of his being was telling him to make the guy pay.

"I'll call you back," He closed the phone.

"I'm going to teach you not to look through private property" The man that attacked Nate walked to him with a baseball bat.

Eliot punched the guy with all the strength he had, taking pleasure on seeing the man crumble down with his nose broken. The two men who were behind him picked up some tools to use as weapons. Eliot quickly picked up the baseball bat now abandoned on the floor and hit one of the guy in his solar plexus and the other guy bent into two from the pain and lack of air. Eliot then pushed him behind him, as the third guy attacked him with a crow bar. He stopped it with the bat, then he punched the guy on the face and with a flip kick the last guy was on the floor too.  
Eliot jumped in his truck and drove away. Luckily he had taken some boxes and bags from the previous warehouses he had visited, so he didn't return to Nate's condo empty handed.

"Seriously?" Hardison opened one of the boxes. "Check it out: A 1981 calendar Hall and Oates. The first two months are all Hall and no Oates. That's cold, man."

"Judging by this fringing and..." Sophie picked up some of the clothes stuffed inside "What? Those shoulder pads, this stuff hasn't left that warehouse since the 1980s."

"I feel like a robot," Parker tried to move wearing one of the jacket.

Sam laughed at her and tried on a hat.

"Wait," Sophie turned to Nate, "So if these are supposed to be just fake businesses, how come their financials are so squeaky clean?"

"Because they're fake businesses. How do you catch mob guys?"

"Ah, two glasses of Chianti and a story about my grandma in Sicily," She smiled thinking about how much money she got from conning a particular mob family in New York.

Nate just rolled his eyes at her. "How does the government catch mob guys?"

"Taxes!" Hardison exclaimed. "That's how they got Capone."

"That's interesting, but how is this going to help Zoe's father?" Sam wondered not really following the team's discussion.

"Oh, I've got just the plan for it," Nate smirked.

"If you're thinking what I think you're thinking, it's going to be dangerous, especially for you," Sophie looked at him alarmed. The con she was sure he was planning on doing was the turnabout that was going to leave Nate alone in an isolated location meeting the man that had already tried to kill him.

"It's going to be okay," He waved her off. "Now, let's getting ready."

"Hmm… Dad?" Sam interrupted. "Do you mind taking me to visit Zoe at the hospital?"

"Oh look," Hardison smirked "The boy's got a crush."

"No, I don't!"

"Defensive! He does!" Eliot teased him too.

"It's… just… I'm sure she's feeling scared… and…"

"Oh, ignored them," Sophie told him. "I'm sure she will be happy to have a visit. Maybe you can take her some flowers."

"That's sounds great. I'm going to get ready!" He jumped from his seat and ran up the stairs.

Both Sophie and Nate watched him leave the room. "He's got the white knight complex, just like you," Sophie whispered in Nate's ear.

Nate smiled. "What can I say? It's a family trait."

"Well, I'm driving," Sophie got his cars keys from the kitchen counter. There was no way she was going to let him drive all around town with the stab wound still fresh.


	4. Chapter 4

An hour later Sam was standing next to Zoe who was vigilant over her father. He still hadn't woken up from the surgery. He noticed she was fiddling with a pendant.

"Sorry," She looked at him from the corner of her eye. "It's a nervous habit."

"No problem. What is it?"

"Saint Brigit. My mother's name. Dad got it for me after she died."

"I lost my mother too," He told her.

"Really?"

"Yeah, nearly three years ago. A drunk driver sent her car off the street."

"Oh, so she's not ..." She nodded towards the brunette woman who was standing next to Nate.

"No, that's Sophie. She's... well I'm trying to make her my Dad's girlfriend, but it's turning out to be an impossible task."

She gave a small laugh. "They say the accident is his fault."

"No, no listen! My Dad and his team. Well, they've found something. I can't really understand it, but you're dad found out that the bank was doing something illegal and he wanted to make things right."

"No, no it's my fault, I insisted he talk to the police. If he had left thing alone..."

"It's not your fault. It's the bad guys and my Dad will make things right. He always does." He timidly touched her arm in conform and she smiled back at him.

"Ah, young love," Sophie exclaimed watching, or more like spying, from the hallway.

"Leave them alone!" Nate went to sit on a waiting chair, standing was putting too much stress on his abdomen.

"You say this because it's your son, but if you had a daughter, you would be keeping an eye there too."

"Sam is too young to be thinking about... girls and stuff..."

"He's nearly eleven" she pointed out at him sitting on the chair next to his. "How old were you when you gave your first kiss?"

"Thirteen," He answered, he saw her raise an eyebrow in amusement "I was a shy boy!"

"Of course!" She giggled.

"And how old were you?"

"A woman never kisses and tells," She teased him back.

He laughed back. He looked up and saw Sam and Zoe laughing together. His son managed to bring some happiness in that girl's day. He reminded him so much of Maggie. He knew Sam wasn't at ease inside hospitals, exactly like him. He was in a hospital room himself recovering from cancer, when Nate had seen his wife dying in the ER.

He was still feeling guilty. Maggie had been in a car accident coming back to the hospital to their son, while he was on the roof top of that same building kissing another woman, the same woman that had paid for Sam's treatment and gave his son back his life, the woman that was sitting next to him then.

"How come you didn't tell us you were in town?" He suddenly asked her.

"What?" Sophie was too preoccupied with her thought that she hadn't heard him.

He turned his head towards her. "Why did you contact us only for your play debut? You must have been here in Boston for some time now"

"I... I don't know." She put a hand on her forehead. "I didn't know where we stood after that day in LA." She sighed. "You didn't stop me, Nate. You let me go on that plane and never looked back again."

"You were expecting me to stop you?" He whispered.

She gave a small sad chuckle. "The fact that the thought never crossed your mind, tells me exactly what you thought about us."

"Soph..."

She waved him off. "No, really. It's nothing." She tried to keep her tears at bay. "Do you still blame me for what happened to Sam? Or Maggie?" She knew he had blame her for Ian kidnapping Sam, if only she hadn't been so greedy and went after both Donatello's David. And she knew that he blame himself and her for Maggie's accident. He thought it had been God's punishment for them kissing that night.

"Of course not and it was wrong for me to say that to you. I just needed time and I think I was pushing you away in the process, I didn't mean to hurt you."

"I was willingly to give you more time. You were the one that kissed me in Paris, remember?"

After the had done a job in Ukraine they had stopped a weekend in Paris. It had only been them and Sam, since the rest of the team had scattered around for their private affairs. It had been a nice weekend. Sophie had showed Sam her favourite city and Nate took the opportunity to relax and enjoy the small vacation.

Then one evening, after they had put Sam to bed, they stood outside their hotel suit balcony and Nate took her in his arms. They were dancing to a faint music coming from down the street, when he suddenly kissed her.

"I know..."

"And you were the one that said we could have started slow, go out on dates..."

"I know, I'm sorry. I had every intention of doing that, but then the drinking got worse, the David job, Ian kidnapping Sam... it was too much to take at the time. I..." He sighed bending his head down. How was he going to exclaim it to her. "I needed to take care of myself, for Sam and for you, before starting something."

"And you did that. You look good"

"Being sober and not constantly drunk can do that to you," He joked.

"And now?"

"And now here we are." They locked eyes.

"And there's Brian," She said knowing that her boyfriend was now an obstacle to their relationship.

She had met Brian at a coffee shop. She had accidentally bumped into him and he apologized, even though it had been her fault, and paid for another coffee since hers was scattered on the floor. They sat down at a table and started talking to each other. At first she thought about giving him one of her aliases name, Katherine, but then she went with Sophie. They slowly started dating and seeing more of each other. That had been two months before.

"Is it..." He left the question hanged in the air

"Is it serious, you mean?" She sighed. "I don't know. But I need to give it a chance. I need to have an uncomplicated and not-stressful relationship for a while, to make sure that I can be that person." she told him truthfully. "You're not the only one with issues, here."

"Yeah," He sighed "So..."

"So..."

"Back to friends?"

She gave him a small smile. "Back to friends." She knew that that wasn't enough for them, but she wondered if the time for them was ever going to come.

After they had left the hospital, it was time to set the con in motion. Nate had called O'Hare while Parker and Hardison took care of the bank manager. The con didn't go without a "small" hitch. Of course the bank manager was at the head of everything and for a moment Nate had been face to face with a gun and since he already got stabbed the day before, he really hadn't enjoyed it. Luckily he had a great team and Sophie, or more precisely Annie Kroy, saved the day. A stage death, a confession and the help of a State police Detective, it hadn't been bad for the first con back together.

"I don't know how to thank you," Matt Kerrigan shook Nate's hand. He had finally regained consciousness and three days later he was out of the hospital on crunches because of a broken leg.

"Here," Nate handed him a check.

Kerrigan looked at it and gasped. "I can't accept this."

"Don't worry. It's not from us. The IRS pays a percentage for all the tax frauds reported. All those mob businesses, 30 years of back taxes. You found them."

"Well, thank you."

They turned towards the far table where Sam and Zoe were talking. " Zoe is not too happy that we've got to move, but I don't feel safe here anymore. Brillinger is not that far."

"I understand. Sam had lived his whole life in LA. But we had to move too, a couple of months ago. It's the things we must do to keep our children safe."

"Yeah."

Zoe took Sam's hand a pressed her St. Brigit medal against it. "I want you to keep this"

"But it's yours… your Mum…"

"Please," She insisted. "Your Dad and you did so much for us. There are wolves in the world. But sometimes they're the good guys, I guess."

They both got up and exchanged an awkward hug.

"Are you ready to go?" Her father limped beside her.

She nodded. "Send me emails."

"I will," Sam sat back down and watched one of his new real friends walk away.

"Poor guy," Sophie whispered in Nate's ear as she quietly stood behind him.

"He'll get over it. He will make new friends."

"Yes, well. It's his first love disappointment."

"Where are the others?" He looked around, but couldn't see them. "I was hoping we could all have dinner together."

"They've disappeared a few minutes ago. Something about changes and hammers."

Nate looked worried. "Oh, well. I guess it's just us and Sam."

Sophie looked down embarrassed. "Hmm.. yeah… actually I've already got dinner plans with Brian"

"Ah, of course." Nate tried to hide his disappointment.

"It will be for the next time."

"Sure, no problem."

Sophie walked passed him and she too exited the pub. Sighing, Nate made his way towards Sam's table and sat in the booth in front of his.

"You got stood up too, didn't you?" Sam asked already knowing the answer.

"Yeah." Nate's eyes fell on the many bottles standing behind the pub's counter, but then he looked down at Sam, his eyes firmly on him. What he had to lose was not worth the pleasure a single sip was going to give him, even though it was tempting, very tempting.

"How about we go home and see what we've got to eat?" He suggested.

"Yeah. Sounds like a good idea, maybe a nice bowl full of ice-cream and sweets."

Nate chuckled had patted his son's head as they walked towards the back door.


	5. Chapter 5

Two weeks later the team just got back from a job in Nebraska.

"Can you show me again the video of Eliot kicking everybody's asses?" Sam sat on the couch next to Hardison who was working on his laptop.

"Sam, language!" Nate scolded him from coming down the stairs.

Sam ignored him and watched as Hardison put the video on full screen on the monitors.

"Oh, not all that violence again," Sophie frowned closing her eyes as she walked inside the condo. She put her handbag on the kitchen counter and went to put the kettle on for a cup of tea.

"I wish I were there too. It sounded like a cool job."

"Believe me, there was nothing cool about it." Sophie sat next to the boy and put her arm around him. "All the food was yellow and they used meat as adjective… ADJECTIVE. Seriously, I still don't see what the big deal was about that chicken-fried steak."

"Still, it would have been fun seeing a boxing match and Eliot beat the guy up. Cora is fine, but she's always busy with the pub, I was practically alone all the time. If you go away again, it would more fun to come with you. "

"Aren't you forgetting about school, kiddo?" Nate walked pass the couch and messed his hair with a hand.

"Seeing Eliot going crazy was awesome, though," Hardison sniggered. Then he looked at Sophie "Why are you here?"

She shrugged "I don't know. Nate summoned me. I've thought it was for another job," She followed the mastermind with her eyes. For the first time she noticed that he was dressed in a suit and tie and that he looked nice, like he was going out. "Are you going on a date?" She wondered, raising her eyebrows.

He put his best jacket on and turned towards her. "No," He rolled his eyes. "I'm going to the parent teacher conference."

"What?" Sam's head snapped around. "There's a conference?"

"Yes, the one your school informed me about where I talk to your teachers and they let me know how you're doing. Anything I should know before I go?" He asked with his best fatherly tone.

"Nope. Everything is fine."

"Hmm…"

"That's still doesn't explain why I'm here"

"To babysit of course"

"Hey," Alec exclaimed. "What am I? The invisible man?" He was a bit hurt that the mastermind didn't trust him to look after the boy.

Nate shook his head. "I don't even know why you're here."

"I'm the landlord, remember?"

"Last time I checked, it doesn't give you the right to stay in people's homes and eat all their food and take control of their TV."

"Details, man, details!"

"Well, there's some money on the counter if you want to order a pizza, and you?" He pointed a finger at his son. "In bed no later than 10pm."

"But…"

"No buts… I'll be back before then," He sighed. "I hope it won't last long." He walked outside, closing the door behind him.

"So, who's up for some video gaming?" Hardison asked, already setting up the console.

Sophie just rolled her eyes and sighed as she went to get her tea and sat down to read a book. This wasn't exactly turning out to be the evening she had planned.

Nate slowly made his way inside the school. It had completely changed from when he had attended it all those years ago, but he didn't know why he still felt intimidated being surrounded by those walls. He heard voices coming from down the hall and he decided to follow them. He pushed the door opened and quietly made his way inside. The other parents inside turned their heads towards him and he gave a small nod and an apologetic nod and then sat on a chair in the far corner. A young and quite attractive teacher was already talking about the class activities in general and Nate was really trying to follow her words, but he always got bored at these things. Maggie was the one who attended them, but now it was up to him. Maybe an year ago he would have had his usual glass of whiskey before going, just to give him an edge, now that he was sober, he really had trouble to stay alert. Finally, after nearly thirty minutes, the teacher had stopped talking and some of the parents got closer to her to ask more details about their children. He waited for most of the people to leave, he really didn't want to talk to them, then he approached the woman.

"Hi," He smiled at her.

"You must be Sam's father." She smiled back at him.

"Hmm…" He was a bit taken aback.

"I've never seen you before and Sam is the only new student."

"Ah… yeah I'm Nathan Ford," He shook her hand.

"Miss. Lauren Nolan. Sam is such a sweet kid, smart too."

"I'll try not to tell him that. He gets a bit cocky." He joked.

"Well, I don't really see him socializing with his new classmates. He usually keeps to himself."

Yes, well.. like father like son, Nate thought. "Moving here from L.A. hasn't been easy for him. He left a lot of friends behind and well… the last couple of years have been difficult."

"Yeah, I read his file." She sympathized. "About your wife's accident and his battle with cancer? Is he okay now?"

"Yeah, he's been cancer free for more than two years now, but yeah.. it was a difficult period for him, but I think he managed quite well."

"I just hope he can make new friends here."

Suddenly a phone call interrupted their conversation. She looked at the screen and Nate noticed how she quickly became agitated.

"Sorry, I have to take this." And she turned away from him. "Ronald, what's going on?" She paused. "You decided to what? You can't go there. I know it's for Anna. I need to go now, I'll talk to you later. Please, don't do anything stupid." She closed the call and sighed.

"Something wrong?" Nate knew that something was troubling her. Something that maybe the team could help with.

"Oh no, nothing really. I don't want to burden you with my problems." She dismissed him.

"Maybe I could help. My team and I… well let's say we specialize in solving problems that the authority or maybe other people can't solve."

She looked at him skeptically, but then she confided in him. "That was a longtime friend of my mother's. He is like an uncle to me. Have you heard of Eddie Maranjian?"

He nodded. "Yes, I'm following the news. He conned a lot of people, took all their life savings, and the police still haven't found the money."

"One of the victims was Ronald's sister. She lost everything to that man and at the end she didn't have the money to pay for her cures and…" She dried her tears, "… she died about a month ago. Now Roland wants Maranjian to pay and I don't know what he will do. He's a good man, he is not…"

"We'll take care of everything, don't you worry," He reassured her.

"Thanks, Mr. Ford, but Roland mustn't know I've sent you, he's a proud man."

He drove back to the condo. Through the closed door he could hear Hardison and Sam shouting over a game. He felt a bit bad to have left Sophie with those two, but when he opened the door he was surprised to see Sophie with a controller in her hands playing what looked like a shooting game. Parker and Eliot were there too, they must have joined the other after he had left.

"Sophie, on your right!" Sam warned her.

The grifter took down the last enemy. "Yes, take that!" She cheered at her success.

They all turned around when they heard the front door close. Nate glared at Sophie, but he was trying to hide a smile. "Weren't you supposed to be the responsible one and have my son ready for bed right now?"

They all looked at the time and groaned. "I'm off!" Sam jumped from the couch and rushed upstairs.

"So, how did it go?" Sophie got up from her seat, a bit embarrassed that the mastermind had found her playing video games, something she said she'd never liked.

"We've got a new job," He smirked.

"What?" Hardison exclaimed. "How can you go to a parent teaching meeting and come back with a new job?"

"Hmm… Nate," Eliot intervened. "I'm not exactly up for a new job. I still need time to recuperate"

"Don't worry I've already got a plan and it will be in a couple of weeks, after Sam's birthday. We'll just have to follow the trail and see if justice wins. If not, we will make sure it does."


	6. Chapter 6

Three days later Nate gently pushed the door of his son's bedroom with his right foot. In his hands he had a tray with a plate full of chocolate chips pancakes and a glass of orange juice.

"Wake up, birthday boy!" He said waking up the now 11 years old boy.

"Hmm..." Sam stirred from his sleep. He saw his father and smiled. It was a long time family tradition. His parents always woke him up with breakfast in bed on his birthday. For a moment he thought about his mother, how he wished she were still with them, but he quickly kicked it away .

Nate noticed the slight hesitation and he felt that ache in his heart that sometimes snuck up at him; it was guilt that ate him from the inside. Most of the times he wished that he had died that night and that Sam would still have Maggie with him. She had certainly been the better parent between them and the kid needed his mother most. That thought had drove him to the bottle, but the belief that he had to do better to honour Maggie's memory helped him get cleaned.

"Thanks dad," Sam thanked him when Nate put the tray on his lap.

"Are you ready for a day of fun?" Nate sat on the edge of the bed. "It's a nice Saturday. We could go to the park to play catch or..." He smiled, " I'm pretty sure the Carnival is in town."

Sam smiled. "Really? Are the others going to come to?"

"Yes," He nodded. "You can even invite some of your classmates. Did you make friends with any of them?"

Sam shrugged. "Not really"

Nate sighed. "You really don't want to turn like your dad."

"We've got friends. There's Parker, Eliot, Hardison and Sophie"

"That's different, Sam," He told him. "Promise me you'll try to get to know someone of our own age?"

"There's someone who reminds me of Max. I could call him and see if he's free to come." Max had been his best friend in L.A. He really missed him. They chatted on the computer nearly every night, but it wasn't the same. He missed his old friends.

Nate patted his knee. "Okay." He got up. "I need to go somewhere. Sophie should be here soon." He looked at the watch. "Actually, she's a bit late which it's quite unusual for her."

"I'm sure I'll manage to stay on my own for a bit without burning the house down," Sam replied sarcastically.

"Now that you're 11, it doesn't mean that you can be more arrogant," Nate smirked. "If you need anything before Sophie gets here, you can always call for Hardison... if he's up!"

The hacker had move to an empty apartment on the floor above soon after he had bought the whole building and became their landlord.

Half an hour later, Nate walked inside the local bakery. It was the best bakery in town. It was always full and Nate often got cupcakes and biscuits from it. Eliot didn't really like it when he did, since he was the cook of the team, but even the hitter had to admit that the desserts were excellent. Nate remembered how his mother used to get his birthday cakes from it and he wanted to do the same for Sam, so weeks before he had ordered their special double chocolate cake.

"I don't care how much money you offer. This places is not for sale and neither are my family recipes!" Carl, the current owner, shouted to a man in a suit.

"I know the business is doing great, but it's not enough to cover all your expenses. Soon the bank will foreclose this place and you would have wished you had accepted my offer"

That caught Nate's attention because that had sounded a lot like a threat.

"Goodbye Mr. Gold," Carl told him and with that the conversation was over.

Mr. Gold stared at him and with a frustrated laugh he left.

"Oh, Nate." Carl noticed the mastermind "The cake is ready. Let me just get it from the back" The man went to the back of the shop and then returned with a white box. "Here's our special." He smiled.

"Thanks Carl." Nate paid him "Is everything okay?" He inquired while handling him the bills.

"Oh, sorry about that. There's this company that wants to buy the shop. I know they're not interested in the building but more on the recipes. There's no way I'm giving them away. This has been my family business for nearly a century now. My children will be ready to take over soon, but the bills are piling up…" He sighed deeply. "I don't know what to do."

"Do you need me to look into it?" Nate asked. He knew people remembered what his father did in this neighbourhood. He was often scared that people would associate what he and his team did with all the horrible things Jimmy Ford had done back in the days.

Carl knew that Nate Ford and his crew were getting a reputation for saving a lot of people in town, sometimes running along the borderline of justice and criminal. He needed help and Nathan Ford was the right man for the job.

"That would be great, thanks."

"No problem," Nate smiled. "I'll let you know what I find. In the meanwhile, keep your eyes open and if you need anything you know where to find me."

"Sure."

Nate left the shop with the cake and got back to his apartment. Sophie and Parker were already there. Parker was playing with Sam at... was Parker teaching Sam how to pick locks?

"Hey Dad, look what Parker got me for my birthday!" Sam exclaimed happily.

"That's... great."

He put the cake in the fridge and turned towards Sophie. The grifter was suspiciously quiet. She was sitting at the kitchen table stirring at her tea absentmindedly.

"Hey," He sat down next to her. "Is everything okay?" He tilted his head.

"Hmm..." She jumped on the chair, startled. She had been so focused on her thoughts that she really didn't hear him "Oh hi, yeah, everything is okay," She lied something that Nate knew perfectly well, but he let the subject drop knowing she wasn't going to confide in him right then.

"So, our boy is turning 11. Time really flies." He kept his eyes steady on his son

"Yeah," She smiled as she watched Sam and Parker laugh at the boy's attempt to steal something from the blonde.

"I can still remember when Maggie and I brought him home for the first time. He was only a few days old and he had everyone wrapped around his finger... he still does." He smiled, but Sophie knew it was a sad smile.

"You miss her." It wasn't a question.

"Yeah," He breathed. "I know Sam does too. I could see it in his eyes this morning when I woke him up. He was thinking about her." He paused. "She should be the one here."

The way he had formalized that phrase made her worry "Nate..."

The door suddenly opened and Hardison and Eliot came in.

"Happy Birthday!" Hardison exclaimed. "Are you ready for the carnival?"

The team spent the rest of the day at the Carnival. Eliot, Hardison and Parker took Sam to all the dangerous rides. Nate hadn't been so happy about it, but Sam was having fun and that was what mattered the most. The also played some games and Eliot had showed them how to win some of them, so Nate and Sophie ended up having their arms full of soft toys and other prizes.

"I'm keeping the monkey," Parker said for the fifth time.

They were gathered around Nate's kitchen waiting for Eliot to serve dinner.

"Parker, he's a kid and you are..." Hardison didn't know how to continue the statement, "A grown up. It's his birthday so Sam's keeping all the prizes."

The thief sulked, not happy about the situation.

"Don't worry, Parker," Sam patted her hand. "You can have the monkey if you want. I have enough toys already."

Parker smiled and then turned her head and stuck her tongue out at the hacker.

"I can't believe it that an 11 years old is more mature than you," Eliot shook his head as he put the last plate on the table.

"Let's dig in!" Hardison had already some spaghetti ready on his fork.

After dinner, they ate the cake and they all went for an extra piece, finishing the whole thing.

"So," Nate clapped his hands. "Do you want your birthday present?" He smirked at his son.

"I thought the cake and the carnival were my presents..."

"Nah..." He waved his hand. Then he took out a white envelope from the inside pocket of his blazer. "Here."

Sam opened the envelope and gasped.

"Let me see." Parker's curiosity won. "What is it?"

"They're season tickets to go and see all the Red Sox games at Fenway!" He jumped and went to hug his father. "You're the best! Thank you!"

"You're welcome." Nate hugged him back.

Sam got some other presents from the team. Hardison got him a new phone, Eliot a new horse saddle and a horse that was waiting for him at hitter's ranch and Sophie got him tickets for the new Harry Potter premier. She knew the boy loved the saga and she managed to get tickets for the opening in New York.

After they all played a board game, Sam went to bed and the three younger members of the team left for the day, telling the mastermind that they were going to see him on Monday.

Sophie stayed behind to help him clean up, but he knew it was only an excuse to keep an eye on him. She felt like he might be on the verge of starting drinking again and she wanted to stop him from making that mistake.

"So," Nate put the last plate in the dishwasher and turned it on. "Are you finally going to tell me what's been bothering you today?" He sat on the couch and Sophie soon took a place on the opposite side.

"Nothing," She told him but feeling his eyes staying on her she groaned, frustrated. "Brian and I had a fight last night." She finally confessed.

"About what?"

"About... everything…" She didn't know what to say to him. Her relationship with Brian was something she really didn't want to discuss with the man that still held her heart. "He wasn't really happy that I wasn't going to spend the day with him."

"You could have made other plans for today."

"There was no way I was going to miss Sam's birthday and I told him that."

Nate smirked, a little satisfied that she had preferred spending the day with them instead of her so annoying boyfriend. After the team had met the guy at Sophie's opening, they had gone out for drinks a couple of times but, as much as they tried, or at least that's what they kept telling themselves, no one had connected with the man and he was mostly a burden.

"So of course he knew I was going to spend the day with you... and that started another fight."

He frowned. "Does he know..."

"No, of course not. Not like there's anything to say, really."

Ouch, that was another stab at him for their not-so-really-started relationship.

"He's just jealous, that's all. But it can be annoying sometimes."

"Well... if he tries something you know I have a hitter on my payroll," He joked.

She chuckled. "Thanks Nate." And she patted his hand that was lying next to hers. "I guess it's time for me to go."

They both got up and they were standing dangerously close.

"Hmm… okay." She quickly turned around, feeling the energy between them. "Goodnight Nate."

"Goodnight," He whispered at the closing door.


	7. Chapter 7

In the three weeks following Sam's birthday the team managed both to help Carl save the bakery and to find the money Marinjian stole and getting him arrested again. If the cons were going great, things couldn't be said the same for the emotions running in the team, or more precisely between the two senior members. Sophie's private life was interfering more and more with her job and Nate wasn't very happy about it.

"What do you mean you can't come to the client meeting tomorrow morning?"

"Sorry Nate, but I'm having breakfast with Brian and I might be late tomorrow"

"I thought the two of you were going out for dinner tonight and that's why you can't make it to movie night?"

Sophie just stared at him with an obvious look, hoping that his male brain would make the connection.

It finally hit Nate what she had meant and his eyes darkened. He was telling himself that it shouldn't bother him, it was none of his business who she slept with, but the battle in his head wasn't really working. "If you're not invested in the team I don't know why you bother coming!" He shouted to her. He immediately regretted his words, but in that moment he wanted to hurt her.

Sophie gasped, shocked. "I…" She didn't know what to say. "I… If you had," She started pacing, waving her hands in the air, "I don't know…A life beside Sam and the job, you would know I'm trying my best to make everything in my life work"

"I have."

She abruptly stopped pacing, her anger turned into shock again. "What?"

He sighed. "I am… kind of dating… someone"

"What? Who? Since when? How…" She stormed him with questions. She took a deep breath "How come you didn't tell us?"

He shrugged and waved her off. "It's nothing really. Nothing I want to talk about it. It's only been a couple of dates in the past couple of weeks."

"Does Sam know?"

"No, I would prefer if he didn't… he might be not too happy about it."

"Why?" She frowned. "He's the one who's always trying to push you towards dating someone."

"I don't think he would approve of her..."

Now that teased her curiosity. "Who is it?" She smiled and approached him, using her grifter techniques to get the truth.

"Lauren Nolan," He caved.

"Nolan? The one that asked us help for the Marinjain case?" Then it hit her. "Sam's teacher?" She gasped.

He nodded.

"Wow," She paused "Is it even professional?"

"I said it was nothing. We've just been out a couple of times. She asked me out for lunch to thank me for helping her friend and I guess then we decided to meet again."

"Nate, this could easily turn into a disaster. What if things don't work out and she takes it on Sam? What if Sam's finds out about it?"

"I said it's nothing," He told her firmly, ending that part of the conversation. "Let's get back to the point. You're missing a client meeting tomorrow. Again"

His words were making her feel guilty. She had a commitment with the team, but she owned to Brian to try and make things work between them. He was slipping away from her and now that Nate seemed to be moving on too, she didn't want to stay alone. "You have your private life, I have mine." She gathered her things and opened the door.

"What am I supposed to do tomorrow?" He shouted after her.

"Take Parker" She slammed the door behind her.

Parker wasn't the right person to take at the clients meetings and, as expected, it had been a disaster.

"I told you not to take her," Eliot pointed out at the mastermind, seeing the man emotionally spent after trying to avert disaster after disaster with Parker's lack of filter when it came to talking to people.

"Well, you were right, but Sophie…" He looked around him. "Where is Sophie?"

"Still not here." Hardison took his place besides the monitors.

"Well, we don't have time to wait for her. Let's start."

Hardison pulled the information they needed and explained the situation and what he had found during his research. By the end of the meeting they had figured out how to get their mark, Daniel Fowler, out of the his house so they could look for the money he had stashed away and help their client's clinic.

"Sophie is still not here," Parker commented as she ate her cereal.

"That's very unusual for her," Eliot noticed. He had a bad feeling about it, but he didn't want to alarm his friends.

Nate shrugged it off. "She might have taken the day off to stay with that boyfriend of hers. I've already told her not to let her private life interfere with our work, but apparently I'm not allowed to say anything," He ranted.

The others looked at each other, not knowing how to take care of the situation. They knew that the relationship between Nate and Sophie was complicated and things were a bit awkward since they all moved to Boston, especially in the last few weeks.

Parker's mobile phone suddenly beeped and she checked it. "She just sent me a text saying that she's not feeling very well today and that she'll come by tomorrow."

"Seriously?" Hardison exclaimed "How are you going to pull off the con without her?"

"You take care of the school principal. Send him… I don't know… somewhere. So we can steal the school and operate freely" Nate told the hacker and got up from the couch.

"What are you going to do?" Eliot asked as he watched the mastermind exit his apartment.

"I'm going to visit a sick friend."

Sophie was curled up in her bed. A loose white sweeter that reached down to her knees was covering her upper body, while her legs were wrapped in a pair of tight leggings. Her face was hidden in her pillow and she was snuggling her blanket.

She heard someone knocking at her front door. She already knew who it was and she tried her best to ignore the incessant banging; she really didn't want to see the others.

"Sophie!" She heard Nate shout. "Open the door, Sophie!"

Then it all stopped. She sighed in relief and dried the tears that were still silently falling. Suddenly she heard faint footsteps approaching her room.

"Soph…" He whispered.

"What are you doing here?" She gulped, hoping he wouldn't notice her crying. "Did you pick my lock?"

"I'm a thief," He retorted back.

"Ah, funny hearing you say that since you keep reminding us how you're not a thief." She still hadn't turned around.

"Sophie, what's going on?" He walked over the other side of the bed and she hid further in the pillow.

"Nothing. I'm not feeling well. You should probably leave before you get it too."

"I know when you're lying to me." He sat down and shifted the blanket. What he saw made his blood boil inside his veins. He swallowed hard. "What happened?"

"Nate…" She tried to calm him down. "It's nothing."

"Nothing?" he got up "You've got a red cheek and a split lip. That's not nothing!" He noticed her jump when he raised his voice, so breathed deeply, hoping that his blood pressure would go down "Was it him? Did he do this to you?"

"It's… we had a fight this morning. He couldn't understand why I had to leave and what kind of job I did with you… I told him it was over and…" She kept sobbing. "One minute he was shouting and then I felt the sting on my cheek. It was only one slap, he apologized soon after, he was shocked too. He's not a violent guy."

"Evidence suggests otherwise. Sophie, this is not you. The Sophie I know, wouldn't have something like this happen. You knew things haven't been right for some time, but you still kept trying. Why?"

"I told you. I wanted things to work out." She defended herself.

"Why? Did you even love the guy?"

"I… I… wanted it to work out." She avoided answering and his eyes.

"But why?" He whispered as he gently lifted her face.

"I don't want to be alone anymore," She cried.

"You're not alone. There's the team, Sam, me. You're never going to be alone, Sophie."

She shook her head stepping back from him only to find the wall against her back. "That's not what I meant. After we all went our separate ways in Los Angeles, I noticed I had nobody to go to. I felt so alone, I didn't know who I was anymore without you all in my life. Then I met Brian and he was a breath of fresh air, someone new, but deep down I knew it wasn't going to work out, there was no future with him, but I still had to cling to the idea."

She suddenly felt his arms around her, which surprised both of them since he wasn't a person who liked to touch others. She resisted at first, but then feeling him pulling her closer she caved and soon they were embracing, her head on his shoulder.

"It's going to be okay," He whispered in her ear as he caressed her back in comfort.

"I don't know what to do." She confessed. "How do I find myself again?"

"I'm here to help, trust me."

She scoffed. "The irony in that."

"You helped me take care of Sam while I was working out my issues last year. Now it's my turn to be the friend you can lean on." He looked her in the eyes. "Trust me."

And for some insane reason she believed she could. She slowly nodded and then rested her head back down, taking some of his comfort.

After he had made sure that Sophie was going to be okay for the rest of the day, he slowly left her apartment after she had fallen asleep. There was another small thing he had to do.

He took his mobile phone from his pocket and called a number he had on speed dial. "Meet me at the corner of Sophie's place. There's something we've got to take care of."

Half an hour later, Brian found himself pinned down on a chair by two of Sophie's friends.

Eliot had a hand firmly on his shoulders. He tried to sit up, but even though it was only one hand, the long haired man was very strong and Brian began fearing for his life.

"I've got one rule." Eliot hissed in his ear. "One simple rule. You don't hit women."

"It was an accident." He babbled. "I didn't mean to."

Nate stepped out of the dark and stood over him. "You're going to stay as far away from Sophie as possible. If I see your face or if she even mentions your name…"

"I knew you two had a thing." Brian interrupted him. He might have been scared of Eliot, but he really hated Nate. "How long has it been going? Was she satisfying both of us? I mean, a woman like that…"

Angrily, Nate kicked Brian's chair right in the middle of his legs and the man fell backwards. Brian grunted in pain as his back hit the floor.

"If you know what's good for you, you will leave Sophie alone...if not…" Nate nodded his head towards Eliot.

The hitter shouted in anger and made a movement to punch the guy on the face. Brian shouted in fear and closed his eyes. He waited but he didn't feel any pain. He slowly opened his eyes only to see Eliot's fist inches from his face.

"Next time it's not going to stop," Nate said and walked away followed by the hitter.

"Why didn't you let me hit him?" Eliot asked, not sure what the mastermind had in mind. "He hurt Sophie. No one hurts any member of the team while I'm around."

"He's the kind of guy who would have gone to the police and pressed charges. We don't need that. I just wanted to scare him a bit, hoping he's not that stupid to try something else."

"It's just that." Eliot struck his fist against his other hand. "I've been meaning to punch him since Sophie introduced him to us. He has a very punchable face."

"Yeah, I know," Nate snorted back. And Eliot knew that if he had to control all his fighting instinct for not hitting the guy, for Nate it must have been even worse since he was in love with Sophie and it was not easy to see the woman you love in pain. He knew that first hand.


	8. Chapter 8

The following evening the team was sitting around the table wondering what had gone wrong during their day. That morning Sophie had covered her injuries from the previous day with make-up, it might have fooled Sam, who was still an innocent kid, but Parker and Hardison had noticed it, but with one look from Eliot they knew not to mention it. She and Eliot had gone to the school as substitutes teachers, while Nate was dressed as a weird new principle. They had a very stressful and unsuccessful day. Parker and Hardison's mission hadn't gone so great either.

"Let me just get this straight, okay. All right, you two, you couldn't rig a gym class or a spelling bee? And you two, you run into the only FBI agents on the planet that recognize you?" Nate paced around the kitchen.

Sam chuckled from where he was sitting at the table doing his homework. "You guys are so ridiculous and fun, you should try coming to my school and take the place of some of my teachers. Some are really insufferable."

"Really?" Sophie smirked at Nate "What about Miss. Nolan, is she insufferable?"

Nate glared at her, but she ignored it and kept looking at Sam.

"No, she's actually one of the nice ones." He paused. "Wait? How do you my teacher's name?"

Sophie jerked in her seat. Sometimes it was easy to forget that this was Nathan Ford's son and his mind was as sharp as his fathers. "I…"

"Because she's your dad's girlfriend," Parker suddenly snitched from her seat as she kept drawing on a piece of paper without looking up.

Silence fell in the room and she lifted her head curiously. "What?" She exclaimed when she saw everyone looking at her with their mouths open. "Hardison told me." She pointed at the hacker.

"I… I only mentioned it once… because the other day I heard it from the surveillance camera." The other's eyes narrowed at the mention of cameras. "I'm going to shut up now."

"There are surveillance cameras in my apartment?" Nate shouted.

"You're going out with my teacher?" Sam shouted at the same time.

"Dammit Hardison!"

"Haven't you heard of privacy?"

"Guys, I'm sorry. I thought I've mentioned it!"

"I'm not dating your teacher. I just went out with her a couple of times. No big deal"

"I don't like people spying on me."

"No big deal? She's my teacher!"

"I'm not spying. It's a precaution. Security reasons."

"Nothing happened."

"I'll show you security reason!"

"Guys! Shut up all of you!" Sophie was the last one to shout and everyone stopped talking. "Thank you." She sighed. "Now listen."

And from the monitors the hears Fowler's son, Widmark, singing in a surprisingly good voice.

"I know how to make Fowler leave his home," Sophie smiled satisfied, already imagining how cool it would be to put a musical on stage.

"I can't believe it. You didn't tell me about my teacher." Sam was still glaring at his father.

"There's nothing to say. We had two lunches together, that's it. She wanted to thank me for helping her and she's a nice person, I didn't have the heart to tell her no when she invited me out again. But there's nothing going on."

"She's not going to flunk me because you've turned her down, is she?" Now Sam was more scared about his father not going out with his teacher.

"Of course not. There was nothing romantic about it"

"You told me you were dating her," Sophie exclaimed suspiciously. "Oh, you were trying to make me jealous!" She smiled mischievously. "How cute!"

"I wasn't…" He stammered. "It was nothing like that!"

"How cute!" Eliot told sarcastically. "Now that you've found a way in, I'm going home. I've had enough with kids." He patted Sam's back. "No offense there, kiddo!"

"None taken," The boy shrugged.

"I'm leaving too," Hardison said quickly and gathered his things, wanting to leave some distance between him and Nate. "I'm going to run Parker's drawing against my database. See if I can find something." He was walking out of the door with Parker right behind him.

"Hardison," Nate stopped him. "I want you to find another solution. Keep the place under surveillance, but no more hidden cameras inside my apartment"

Hardison gulped. "Sure boss." And he quickly left the condo.

"Are you staying for dinner, Sophie?" Sam asked the grifter. "So we can both tease Dad about his no-dates with my teacher."

She chuckled. "Would love to baby, but I need to work on something for the kids to work on tomorrow." She slowly got up, her eyes teasing Nate. She wasn't going let him off the hook anytime soon. "I'll see tomorrow."

"Oh, Dad," Sam shook his head smiling. "You've messed with the wrong woman."

Nate playfully ruffled his hair and Sam tried to smack his father's hand away. "Finish your homework while I make dinner," He laughed.

The team worked on some different cases and before they knew it Christmas arrived. It was the first Christmas they spent together as a family. The team had all gathered in Nate and Sam's apartment and for the first time in a long time, for most of them, it felt like a real holiday. They got presents for each other, Parker and Sam had decorated the tree, Eliot had cooked Christmas lunch, and Hardison got everyone involved in a Christmas karaoke. Sam had even tricked Nate and Sophie to kiss under the mistletoe. They had spent some happy and memorable times together, but all that was about to change.

"So," Nate walked back in the pub and sat at the table next to the others, "I just got off the phone with our clients. Told them we couldn't recover their dead father's painting. Anyone want to explain why?" He noticed someone was missing. "Where's Sophie? Shouldn't she be back by now?"

Eliot grabbed his phone. "I'm on it."

"Nazis!" Parker exclaimed. "Maybe they want the stuff back that they stole. You know? Secret Nazis."

"Oh a conspiracy!" Sam's eyes glowed. " I like that. Can we keep the painting? Dogs playing poker, I like it."

Nate shook his head. "Sam, what did I say about staying during our meetings?"

"That I'm always welcomed?" He said, knowing it was far from the truth.

"Have you finished your homework? Did you study for that Geography test?"

"Yes, it's a lot easier since I have friends that have travelled all around the world."

"It's going to voicemail. I'm gonna try comms." Eliot told them as he put his phone away and put his comm in his ear. "Sophie? Nate wants to know why you…" He paused, "I'd say that's a pretty good reason."

His eyes told Nate everything he needed to know: Sophie was in trouble.

"You stay there, we're coming." Eliot was fast up from his seat. The others soon followed.

"No Sam, you stay here." Nate stopped his son.

"But why?" He whined.

"It could be dangerous. Sam, please. This is not negotiable." He nodded to Cora who was standing behind the bar counter and she understood.

"So, what's going on?" Parker asked when they were inside Lucille, Hardison's van.

"She's holding a bomb."

"A bomb?" Hardison shouted, freaking out. "The ones that go BOOM and blew up things."

"Do you think it was Brian?" Nate asked as he tried to stay calm and not to panic.

"No, he didn't seem the type. This is definitely someone else."

"So we need to save our grifter and find out who wants to kill her," Nate sighed.

They arrived at Sophie's apartment in only a few minutes, mostly because Eliot hadn't respected the speed limit and passed through a couple of red lights. Hardison would make sure they didn't get a ticket later.

Just like she said, Sophie was standing in the middle of her kitchen. In her hands she had a strong grip on a vase of flowers.

"Soph... how is it going?" Nate slowly approached her. He wanted to put a hand on her back, but he stopped himself, not wanting to make the bomb detonate.

"Oh, you know... I'm just holding a bomb... same old story."

Eliot and Hardison bent down to analyze the circuit inside the vase.

"Yeah, it's a bomb."

"And it's motion triggered."

"Any sudden movement will displace the water and set the C4 off."

"So, any ideas?" Nate locked eyes with the others.

"Have you got instant pudding?" Parker suddenly asked.

"Seriously?" Eliot groaned.

"Baby... now it's not the time... for your craziness..."

"No, guys... the powder should solidify the liquid a bit and give Sophie more time."

"More time for what?" Sophie was afraid on where they were going with that.

"Run..." Eliot said understanding Parker's plan. "Run as fast as you ever have."

Sophie took a deep breath and gave them a slow nod.

Parker took the instant pudding from her kitchen cupboard and carefully poured it inside the vase.

"Okay guys, I want everyone out of here," Sophie told them calmly, hiding her fear.

"We're not leaving, Sophie," Hardison told her.

"Look, I appreciate what you guys are trying to do, but just… if you don't get out of here now, then… then I'm gonna kill you myself when this is over. So just... just get out!"

Parker and Haridson were the first ones to leave.

Eliot looked at Sophie. He would have done anything to trade places with her, but unfortunately he had to see his friend go through it.

"All right. Don't throw it up in the air. The device will hit the bottom and it'll go off. Just let go and drop it." He advised her before leaving too.

"Nate, you too."

"I'm not leaving Sophie. We'll run out of here together."

"Nate please," She pleaded him with her eyes. "You've got Sam to think about. I'm not going to be responsible for leaving a child orphaned."

"Sophie..."

"Go. I'll be right behind you."

Reluctantly Nate left. "Do exactly as Eliot told you." He walked towards to the front door but stayed at the edge.

Sophie took a long deep breath then she slowly lifted her hands above her head. She let the vase drop and turned around, running into Nate's waiting arms.

As soon as she was safe in his arms. Nate pushed her behind him, away from the blast and covered her body with his. They felt the wall shake from the enormous blast and the heat coming from the open doorway. When it all stopped, Nate lifted his head that was resting on top of hers.

"Are you okay?" He asked, checking her out for any injuries.

"Yes, I'm fine." Her voice shook.

"Let's get out of here before the police arrives."

"Why?"

"Because as far as anyone knows. Sophie Devereaux died in that explosion."


	9. Chapter 9

They met the other inside the van and Eliot drove them to Nate's apartment. As soon as they were inside, Sam tackled Sophie with a big hug.

"You're okay," He said, his face buried in her stomach.

Sophie smiled and put her arms affectionately around the boy. "Yes, I'm fine. You father and the others got to play heroes again."

"Sam, why don't you and Parker-" Then he thought twice about leaving his son alone with the thief, "-and Eliot," He soon added, "Go and get dinner from somewhere."

"Okay," Sam knew they were going to talk about something that he wasn't supposed to listen to, but one way or another he always found out what it was.

"So," Sophie sat heavily on the couch from exhaustion, staying still holding that vase for more than an hour had taken a toll on her, "What's the plan?"

"Hardison," Nate nodded to hacker.

"You're going to make sure that people will think that you've died in that explosion. We'll stage a funeral and we hope that whoever is trying to kill you will want to make sure that he had succeeded."

"Oh, I get to play dead. I always love a good death scene," Sophie exclaimed excitedly.

Nate shook his head, smirking, glad that nothing could stop his grifter. "You'll be staying here for the time being."

"I've got other places I can stay, you know. There's a warehouse I've converted into an emergency apartment that..."

"No," He interrupted her. "We can't risk somebody seeing you. I'm sorry but for the next few days, you're under house arrest."

"Ouch," She frowned. "Couldn't you have chosen a better metaphor?" She glared at him

"If you need clothes or anything else, Parker can go and get them for you later. In the meanwhile…" He turned towards Hardison.

"Yes," He sighed, knowing that it was going to be a long evening for him. "I'll work on everything and make it believable."

"What makes you think they will show up?" She asked.

"If someone has gone through the trouble of killing someone like Sophie Devereaux, they're going to make sure you're dead."

She shivered. There certainly was a compliment somewhere in there, but the thought that someone wanted her dead still sent chills down her spine "Well," Sophie got up. "I need a shower before dinner."

"Sure. You know where everything is. Feel free to borrow some of my clothes until Parker gets yours."

"Nate," She smiled playfully. "Don't you know by now that your downstairs closet is filled with many of my clothes?" She walked passed by him and ran a finger teasingly down his chest. "But that's not going to stop from borrowing one of your shirt; they're so comfy." And she slowly made her way up the stairs swinging her hips as she did so, knowing that Nate always took the chance to look at her behind when she was leaving.

Hardison chuckled knowing that the grifter had Nate wrapped around her finger and she could do anything to him. One glare from the mastermind and he quickly put his head down and continued working.

Later that evening, Hardison had gone to his apartment to finish his work. They wanted the fake funeral as soon as possible so everything was scheduled for the following afternoon. Parker had gone to Sophie's safe house and got some clothes for her and then she left with Eliot. She still didn't understand the concept of a fake funeral and Nate asked Eliot to keep an eye on her. Sam had gone to bed, even though it took a long time to separate him from Sophie. Nate didn't want Sam to go at the funeral the next day and that caused an argument between father and son. The boy had already got to go to his mother funeral, he didn't want him to relive those painful memories. To stop their verbal fighting match, Sophie offered to help Sam get ready for bed, even though he was old enough to do it himself, but she took advantage of the situation to explain to the boy how his father only wanted to protect him and he wasn't being mean. Also she didn't want him to assist her fake funeral, it was going to be painful and dangerous and she wasn't going to be comfortable with him there. Sam finally understood and agreed.

"So?" Nate asked when he saw her coming down the stairs.

"We've finally reached a compromise," She sighed and sat down on the couch next to Nate. "Your son is very stubborn. I wonder where he gets that from?" She said sarcastically.

"No idea," He smirked.

She chuckled and rested her head on the back of the couch and closed her eyes. It had been a long day. She could feel Nate's eyes on her and she slowly turned her head to its side and opened her eyes to look at him. His intense gaze made her heart beat fast. "What's wrong?" She asked in a breath.

He slowly brought his hand to her face and tucked her hair behind her ear, moving his fingers along her chin. "I almost lost you today."

She held her breath at his touch. "But you didn't," She reminded him. "I'm okay. I'm still here," She reassured him.

Soon she saw his face move closer to hers. He had given her all the time she needed to stop him, to escape if she wanted to. But she didn't. With what felt like an eternity, she willingly waited for his lips to final connect with hers. At first it was a simple brush of lips. She parted her lips and closed her eyes at the sensation. "Nate," She murmured, her desire for him evident in her voice.

Nate soon deepened the kiss and fervently took claim of her mouth. His fear for her during the event of that day and eagerness to feel her alive against him washed over him like a waterfall. He slowly pushed her to lay down on the couch and he crawled on top of her and ran his fingers up the sides of her legs to her hips holding her firmly against him. His mouth hadn't left hers and the lack of oxygen was making her dizzy or maybe it was him and his passion. "Nate, we can't do this here. Sam…" She told him, reminding him that his son could have come down at any minute.

Nate stopped his kisses against her collarbone and lifted his head to look at her. She hoped that the mention of the boy hadn't scared him away. She had been waiting for this moment for a long time and she wasn't going to let him run away from it She watched him lift himself off from her and then put his hand out for her to take. She laced her fingers with his and together they made their way to his bedroom.


	10. Chapter 10

The morning after, Sophie woke up to an empty bed. She ran her hand down beside her and she felt the cold sheet underneath her fingers. Nate had left a long time ago, the only signs that the other night really happened were the familiar aches in her body and her state of nakedness. She quickly slipped into Nate's robe and went to the bathroom for a quick shower. After she got dressed she went down stairs. She could hear both Sam and Nate talking in the kitchen

"Good morning, Sophie," Sam smiled up at her when he saw her descend.

" G'morning!" She kissed the side of his head. Her eyes locked with Nate's. His face was turning all different shades of red. "Hello, Nate," She smirked at him.

"Hi," He managed to say embarrassed before continuing to finish Sam's packed lunch.

Sophie just smiled it was going to be fun to tease him the rest of the day. She got her breakfast and sat next to Sam. She could feel Nate's eyes on her so she seductively started licking the spoon before sinking it in her yoghurt again.

"Dad, we need to hurry or I'm going to be late for school," Sam told his father that was for some reason distracted.

Nate gulped. "Sure." And he continued his task trying to avoid, at all cost, to land his eyes on Sophie.

Soon father and son were out the door. When Nate got back from driving Sam to school, the rest of the team were already there. His eyes found Sophie's and they knew it was going to be a long time before they could find the privacy to talk about what happened the night before. Putting their emotions aside, they all worked at the con. As expected someone did show up at Sophie's funeral, someone she didn't think she was going to see again.

"That's Marcus Starke," She whispered in Nate's ear as she was blending with the others.

"You're not supposed to be here!" He hissed back. "What if someone recognizes you?"

"Nate," She rolled her eyes at him. "I'm acting. No one will see me."

He dragged her towards his car and they drove off. "So, who is Marcus Starke?"

"Are you jealous?" She teased him, recognizing the slight hint of anger in his voice. Nate just glared at her and she continued. "He's a brilliant grifter, even a better forger. We used to work together… Copenhagen job in '97, the Berlin Polytech job in '98. Oh, Nate," She laid a hand on his arm, "Do you remember that great run in Moscow?"

"Great run? You mean when I chased you for three months?"

"Technically you were chasing both of us."

"Exactly how close were you with this Starke guy?" He eyed her. "How come I never heard of him?"

"He knows how to keep a low profile and we only worked together. He's a firm believer in not mixing work with pleasure. Not that I was ever interested in him, but he likes to think I was." She paused. She finally found the courage to bring the forbidden subject up when a familiar voice came through the comms.

"I can't believe that you saw other teams before us!" Hardison exclaimed a bit offended.

"Is that like cheating?" Parker added. "Because it feels like it."

"Nate," They could hear the smirk in Eliot's voice. " Let me ask you a question: what bugs you more, is it the fact that he was with Sophie first or that he outsmarted you?"

By the time he had finished, Sophie and Nate entered the apartment. Nate just got there to send a scary look at the hitter's directions, not that it mattered, Eliot just kept smiling.

"Oh, look! Sophie's ghost is here. It's like she haunting us," Parker poked the grifter, checking if she was real or not.

"Parker, I'm not really dead!"

"Guys, we need to find Starke." Nate got their attention again. "I bet he's behind the mysterious disappearance of our client's painting."

"Starke doesn't keep a permanent crew. He specializes in whiz mobs. Usually they do one smaller job first just to work out the kinks in the team. That painting would have been perfect. He must have seen me in the building."

"But why would he want you dead?"

Sophie smiled at the hitter. "Because I know his scams. Because... I know his favorite scam: The Mona Lisa variant."

"Oh, oh." Parker waved her hand in the air like an eager school kid who knew the answer. "That was the first one I learned. In 1911 the Mona Lisa was stolen and the con man who did it made six identical copies. And then they put them on the black market, and each buyer thought that they had the original."

"Hardison," Sophie called the hacker, tossing him his remote. "Pull up all the auctions in Boston in the next two days. Starke never stays in a city more than two days."

So they discovered which painting Starke was after and they put up a plan for taking him and his team by surprise. At the end they managed to steal the Van Gogh painting and exchange it for their clients' one. They also discovered that another member of Starke's team, Cha0s, Hardison's longtime rival, was the one that tried to get rid of Sophie, so they made sure he was going to spend a good few years in prison.

After they gave the painting to the Mercers, Nate looked around hoping that he could finally have that conversation with Sophie.

"If you're looking for Sophie she said she had to take care of something," His son told him while he kept typing on his computer.

Nate tried to think where she could be and then an idea hit him. "I'll be back soon." He rushed outside the pub.

Just like he imagined, he found Sophie at cemetery kneeling down at her grave. Her fingers traced the name Sophie Devereaux. "How did you find me?" She asked without looking back.

He shrugged. "Just put two and two together."

"Starke was right. I'm not Sophie Devereaux anymore. I haven't been for ages." She confessed to him. " I... you killed her, you and your silly crusade."

"It's just a name… it doesn't define you."

"That's where you're wrong. They're not just names, not to me. All my aliases, every one of them, I know when their parents died. I know when they had their first kiss. I…"

"Sophie," He whispered as he put a hand on her back.

She quickly got up and turned in his arms. "You're the closest thing I've ever had to a special person in my life, and I've never heard you say my real name. How sad is that? Even the other night in the throws of passion, you never said my name."

"So tell me." He took a step closer to her, but she laid a hand on his chest to stop him.

"I can't, Nate. I can't open up to you until I finish burying Sophie first. Finish burying the rest of them, until all that's left is me. Just me."

"What does that mean?" He asked, afraid of her answer.

"I need to leave. I need to take some time off and search myself. It's something I needed to do a long time ago."

"Soph… don't… let me help you," He pleaded, almost begged.

"Nate," She smiled sadly and caressed his cheek affectionately. "I must do this alone."

He didn't want her to leave, not after what finally happened between them, but he understood her position and he slowly nodded, but that didn't mean he liked the idea of her leaving him for who knows how long.

"I'll come by later to say goodbye to the others." She placed a gentle kiss on the side of his mouth and left him all alone in the middle of the cemetery.


	11. Chapter 11

It had been two weeks since Sophie had left Boston. Sam hadn't spoken to his Dad during the whole first week. He had blamed Nate for her leaving and he couldn't understand why he hadn't tried to stop her. Of course the boy didn't know the whole story, but he finally decided to forgive his father after a Skype conversation with Sophie where she told him it had been her choice to leave and to be good to his father. The first con without Sophie had been a complete disaster. Hardison overdid it with his alias and it had nearly ended badly.

Nate had called Sophie, begging her to come back because without a grifter they couldn't function. But she wasn't ready to come so she had called one of her oldest friend that owed her a favor.

"Sophie, I don't know how you managed to work with these guys." Tara Cole paced in front of her computer where she was having a conversation with the grifter. "I know I'm not exactly a team player, always worked alone, but I'm sure it's not supposed to be like this. Eliot is fine. He's a professional, so I guess we can find a common ground, but Parker and Hardison are just weird. And Nate, he's a compulsive, controlling, addict that doesn't communicate. And I definitely didn't sign up to babysit his kid. Grifters and thieves don't have kids. It's unnatural! Plus the kid doesn't like me."

Sophie just smiled through all her rant. "Tara please, try to make it work. I need someone to have their backs"

"Okay, but you owe me big time."

It took awhile for the team to get used to another grifter and after they had both made fun of Nate because of one of his aliases, Sam and Tara finally found a common ground and spent more time together.

It was all going great until John McRory died. It had been hard for Nate, John McRory had been an important figure in his childhood. He had been a better father figure than his own father.

Cora had found out that her father was in debt with a shark loan and was threatening to take the bar away from her. The team resolved the problem, but at a great cost. Nate started to drink again. One drink became two, two - three until he went back to the days where he would pass out from the alcohol in his system.

Sam wasn't happy about it. He tried to convince his father to go to meetings again to get himself sober, but Nate insisted that he was fine and that he was a functioning alcoholic.

"Dad, it'll soon be spring break and I was thinking about accepting Sophie's offer and visiting her in London," Sam told him one evening.

"You don't want to spend the holidays with your old man?" His voice was unsteady because he was slightly inebriated.

"I miss Sophie and it will be a great opportunity for me to visit the city." He didn't want to tell him that he didn't want to spend time with his drunk father.

Nate slowly nodded. "Okay, I'll make the arrangements."

So the week after Sam took a flight to London where he was going to stay for ten days. Sophie was going to wait for him at the airport. Sam walked pass the border with the flight attendant assistance since he was a minor. When he saw Sophie he ran towards and gave her a big hug.

"Sophie, I missed you!"

"Missed you too, baby." She held him against her. She thanked the flight assistant and took his luggage. "So, are you ready for some fun?"

The boy nodded eagerly and they walked outside. Sophie had organized all different kinds of tours. They saw everything about London and they even took some tours outside the capital. The 11 years old was learning a lot of things and he had enjoyed spending some time with his guardian.

"Dad is not the same anymore," He confessed one evening when they were sitting on the couch after dinner. "His drinking has gotten worse. It's not like when he was drinking after Mum died, this is …"

"Sam?" She patted his leg in encouragement.

He shook his head, "It's nothing. I'm sure when you come back it will be better"

After he had gone to bed, Sophie was at the computer waiting for Nate's call. She opened the window when it beeped.

"Hey." She soon noticed the glass of scotch in his hand.

"Hi, is Sam still up?"

"No, he went to bed about half an hour ago."

"Oh," He couldn't hide the disappointment. Sam was the only reason for him to live and if his son wanted nothing to do with him, what did he have left?

"Nate, what are you doing?" There was so much accusation and disappointment and regret in that simple question.

"What am I doing? I'm doing my job, Sophie. The one you left."

"You need to stop drinking"

"You have no right to tell me what I can or can't do." He shouted at her, getting up from the couch.

"Did you even see yourself at the mirror? I can't…" She shook her head in disgust. " I don't even recognize you anymore."

"Well, you wouldn't from miles away, would you?"

"Stop blaming me leaving as the cause of your troubles. I don't know what happened, but you need to snap out of it"

"I…"

"Your own son is scared of you," She finally told him. Sam hadn't actually said the words, but she had read the sentiment in his eyes.

"What?" That stopped his pacing.

"Sam is scared of you. What he sees is not his loving Dad, but a drunk who…" She paused, not wanting to say the words. "You've become just like your father, someone you told yourself you would never become. And if you keep drinking like this I don't know if I'm comfortable sending Sam back to Boston."

Her words had hurt him more that he could imagine. "You're not his mother, Sophie. I don't care if I have to get on a plane and come over. You're not taking my son away from me." And he ended the conversation.

Sophie sighed. He was hoping that throwing the truth to him, bringing his father up would have make him finally realize that he needed help and get back on the wagon.

Eliot, Parker, Hardison and Tara were sitting at a table at McRory's waiting for Nate to get back from picking Sam up from school and tell them about their new job.

"So, has anyone heard from Sophie recently?" Parker asked suddenly. Hardison had just been talking to her about a holiday in Japan., but she wasn't really listening to him. She didn't get the whole concept of not stealing, so she wasn't really interested in it.

They all looked at each other and then they all stopped their gaze on Tara.

"What?" The blonde shrieked. "I'm not her babysitter. Last time I checked she mentioned about how she had been contacted for a heist."

"Wait? Sophie is working with someone else?" Hardison opened his eyes wide. "I thought the whole point of her leaving was to find herself, not another team."

Tara shrugged. "She was going to decline, but I guess something made her change her mind since she disappeared on us."

In that moment Nate and Sam entered the pub. Sam was sulking with his head down and his backpack on his shoulder. He lifted his head up just to nod at the team and then, without saying a word, he went to one of the back tables to do his homework. It was still strange to see the once energetic kid being a shadow of his old self. He had been like that since he got back from visiting Sophie.

"Something wrong?" Eliot asked the mastermind once he sat at their table with a cup of coffee, even though they all knew there was alcohol in it.

"Apparently he's failing French."

"Sophie used to help him with his French homework."

"Yes, I know!" Nate snapped at the thief. "But she's not here, is she? So he could have asked someone else." He took a long sip of his drink. The alcohol already taking some of his pain away.

"Hey man, she was just saying," Hardison defended his friend.

"Well… it's nothing I can't take care of… so did you have a look at the files, any possible new clients?" Then something, or more like someone caught his attention. "Eliot, I'm going to ask you not to do anything violent."

The hitter frowned confused. "What are you talking about? I only use violence as an appropriate response for…"

"Hello Nate," He heard someone saying behind his back.

In a flash, Eliot got up his chair and punched the guy behind him making him fly across a table. He kept punching the older man until he felt Nate's hand stopping him.

"Eliot, let him talk first." He looked down at the man lying on the table with Eliot's hand around his throat holding him down "Sterling, what are you doing here?"

"I've actually come as a personal favor."

Nate had a hard time believing that. Sterling always had a second agenda. Even though he hadn't helped Ian Blackpoole kidnap his son when his former boss use Sam as leverage to get the two Davids back, the man was ambitious and couldn't be trusted.

"And why would you do that?"

"I thought you might be interested to know that Sophie is in trouble."


	12. Chapter 12

Later they were all sitting in the condo's living room. Sterling was standing in front of the monitors while they were waiting for Nate to come back downstairs. He was helping Sam pack a bag for his stay over at a friend's house while the team was going to get Sophie back.

"So what's the story?" Nate asked as he rushed down stairs.

"This Faberge egg was commissioned by czar Nicholas of Russia. Being one of only 69 known to survive, It's worth 9 million dollars…" James sterling explained. "And Sophie Devereaux was arrested the other day at the crime scene"

"I thought you had an alert on all us when we're under the authority radar?" Eliot shot a glare at the hacker sitting next to him.

"I do, nothing came up."

"That's because she's under a different alias," Sterling intervened, "but I recognized her when they sent me a photo of her."

"Why are you here?"

"The Faberge egg is insured with IYS. I know for certain Sophie is not involved. She never would have been so sloppy and get caught unconscious on the floor."

"She was drugged and framed for it."

"This job is what I was talking about," Tara added. "She said someone had contacted her for a heist but she was going to refuse. Something has happened in between."

"I assume you have another suspect," Nate turned his head towards Sterling.

"Alexander Lundy, international real-estate mogul. Very rich, very powerful. My only problem is that he works at the American embassy, which makes him untouchable by normal law enforcement."

Nate paced and put a hand on his forehead. "Hardison, check all Sophie's activities in the last few days. Let's see if we can trace where the job came from. And book us all tickets for Kiev." He nodded towards his son. "Sam?"

The boy dragged his feet towards the door and followed his father. He wasn't happy that he was going to stay in Boston while the others were going to Ukraine to save Sophie.

Hours later they were in a hotel suite in Kiev studying Hardison's and Sterling's files.

"How are we going to get Sophie out of prison?" Tara asked. She wasn't too happy about her friend still being behind bars. Grifters weren't made to stay in prisons.

"I'm leaving that to you," Nate sighed, pouring scotch in a glass and drinking it in one long sip. He then poured another glass.

"I'm not working with this guy," Eliot pointed angrily at Sterling.

The IYS agent just smirked.

"You don't have to. I'll be working with him. We're going to find the real thief and clear Sophie's name." He finished his drink. "Well, let's get to work."

Two hours later they had plans to meet back at the hotel. Tara, Eliot, Parker and Hardison successfully got Sophie out of prison and Sterling and Nate interrogated Alexander Lundy but they still didn't have enough to incriminate him. The two men were looking at some files when the rest of the team entered the room followed by Sophie. Nate lifted his head and stopped in his tracks when his eyes landed on hers. They hadn't talked to each other since their big fight on the phone weeks before.

"Hello Nate," She interrupted the awkward silence that had filled the room.

"Sophie," He gave her stern nod. "Parker and Hardison will help you get out of the country while we deal on the situation here." He kept working on the files.

"There's no way I'm leaving. I can help. I'm sure I can recognize the voice of the guy that contacted me."

"Sophie!" He shouted, running a hand through his hair. "This is not negotiable. We managed to get you out of prison now let us do our thing"

"I'm not an amateur." She shouted back. "I know what I'm doing. There's a party at the American Embassy tonight. Tara and Eliot found out about a possible Zanzibar marketplace going on. It's perfect. We go in, find out where the egg is, steal it back and maybe get the thief."

He grimaced in frustration. "Guys, give us the room!"

It was no a request and everyone exited through the door, even Sterling who had no intention on staying for what looked like a lover's quarrel.

"I'm staying, Nate and that's final," She told him once the door closed.

"What if the guy sees you?" He shouted at her. "Maybe this time he won't just try to frame you, but maybe he'll just want to get rid of the problem permanently. You're not going to put your life at risk."

"I can take care of myself. I've been…"

"...doing it long before you met me," He finished for her. He sighed and looked into her eyes. He knew she wasn't going to back down. "Okay, fine," He reluctantly agreed. "But you're going to stay next to me at all times."

"Fine!"

The stood in silence, not knowing what to say next.

"How's…" She began timidly.

"How is the drinking going?" He finished for her. "Still a drunk, thanks for asking."

"Nate, we need…"

"We don't need anything. The time for talking is done. We had a night of sex and that's that, nothing more."

"You know that's not true." She cried back.

"All I know is that we had something for a night and then you left."

"I told you I needed time"

"You had three months!" He shouted back. "Three! And you even sent another grifter to take your place, what am I supposed to think?"

Tears were running down her cheeks. "Nothing. You've got it all figured it out by now, haven't you? You just stay with your alcohol, Nate. And the rest be damned." She stormed out of the room.

That night Nate and Sophie walked arm in arm inside the Embassy ballroom. As soon as they could they let go of each other. Everyone noticed the tension between them. Tara was already siding with Sophie, so she kept glaring at Nate and giving little snarky comments.

"Guys," Sterling hissed, "Can you keep it professional?"

"I could have done that," Came Hardison's voice from the comms. "But no… Hardison is in the van, eating stale candy while all you get to dine on canapés and - and champagne"

"Okay, guys, Tara's on the grift. She's got the bidding envelope so she's going head into the auction." Nate told them. "Eliot, Parker, keep your eyes open." He turned towards Sophie. "Have you recognized anyone?"

She shook her head. "Not yet." Then she heard the voice. "Wait, that's him!" She looked at the figure passing behind her.

"Alex Lundy?"

"No, the guy next to him, his assistant."

They watched him walk away. "Eliot, where are you?" Nate asked the hitter through comms.

"I'm watching Tara's and Parker's back, can't get away right now."

"Okay, Sophie and I are going after him. Sterling call the authorities, they'll have the Faberge Egg by then."

Nate and Sophie followed Lundy's assistant making sure to have eyes on him. They saw him turn around the corner, but when they went the same direction they couldn't see him anymore.

"What…" Nate turned around and he was tasered and he lost consciousness, soon followed by Sophie.


	13. Chapter 13

When Nate woke up he had his head on something soft. He slowly lifted his head up and he groaned in pain. He soon realized he had been resting on Sophie's lap. "What happened?"

Sophie had been already up for a while. She had spent the previous minutes running her fingers through Nate's hair, content to have him next to her without all the shouting and resentment. When she felt him stir from his sleep, she quickly lifted her hand away.

"We got played. I don't think we're inside the Embassy anymore."

"Is this an elevator?" He looked around. He wanted to get up but his left hand was handcuffed to the floor bar of the lift. "Why are we here?"

"I bet that's not the biggest problem we have," Sophie nodded to a rucksack on the opposite side of the cabin. She had tried to reach for the bag, but it had been too far away. She knew for certain that nothing good was inside it.

Nate tried to reach it with his foot. He had barely managed to get it to tug it towards him when he caught with his right hand and together he and Sophie opened it.

"Is that…" Sophie gasped in fear.

"A bomb"

"Can you disarm it?"

"I don't know… if I take the wrong wires out…" He studied the device.

"The taser fried our comms, so we can't contact the others."

"I'm sure they are working on finding us. We'll probably be traded for the Faberge egg."

"Well, he obviously has no intention of keeping his end of the deal since we're locked in here with a bomb that's going to go off in more or less two minutes," Sophie argued.

"Sophie, calm down and let me work on it." He took the blue wire out. They waited to see what happened and the timer jumped from two minutes to just under one minute.

"That's great, Nate!" She told him sarcastically.

"Wrong wire."

"You think?" She put her hand on his arm. "Just stop it. If we really have only a minute to live I need to tell you something. I…" But her speech was cut short by his lips on hers. His kiss was demanding and she gave into their passion. It wasn't a bad to die like this, after all. They kept kissing waiting for the imminent explosion. When it didn't come, they slowly separated and looked around. The bag had disappeared and they noticed that the top hatch was open.

"Parker!" They exclaimed together.

Soon they felt the elevator move and they knew that the cavalry had arrived.

"Nate… I…" She shrieked in pain and bought her hand to her abdomen.

"Sophie!" He looked at her scared. "Are you in pain?" Then he saw blood pooling on the floor. "Is that… how…" He couldn't understand where the blood was coming from.

"The baby…" She said in between gasps. "The baby…"

"What baby?" He shook his head and then he hit him. "You're pregnant!" He whispered, shocked.

The doors of the elevator opened and the others were standing right behind them.

"Have you guys finished your make out session?" Hardison smirked. "Parker, told us you were really going at it. Which is gross."

"Parker!" Nate ordered "Cuffs"

The smiling faces of the others soon turned serious. "Is that blood?" Tara kneeled beside her friend. "Why is she losing blood?"

"We need to take her to a hospital! Fast!" Nate got up as soon as Parker removed his cuffs and she had freed Sophie too. He helped the grifter. "Nate…" She was crying "I can't lose…"

Eliot helped Nate carry Sophie outside to the van parked outside. They left the driving to Parker, knowing that the thief was going to reach the hospital in no time.

Half an hour later they were waiting for news in the waiting room. Nate was pacing up and down craving for a drink. By now the others knew what was wrong with Sophie and they didn't know what to be more shocked about: the fact that Nate and Sophie slept together or that they probably were going to have a kid together. A doctor came out of the room and approached the group.

"Who's mister Nathan Ford?" He asked in his thick accent.

"That's me, how is she? How's the…"

"Miss Devereaux is fine. She needs rest." He paused. "But I'm sorry to inform you that she had a miscarriage." He gave him a minute to take the news. "You can go in to see her."

Nate slowly nodded. The others watched him walk away with his head down. That was going to be another hard loss for Nate to take. Both their friends needed them to be strong and to help them get through their hard time.

Nate opened the door and gently closed it behind him. Sophie was laying on the bed her head turned around towards the window and away from him.

"Hey." He sat on the edge of the bed.

She kept looking away. Her eyes red from all the tears she had she, but that she no longer had the strength to cry.

"I'm sorry…" He whispered. "That's what you were trying to say to me earlier today and… and I shouted at you and now…"

"It's not your fault Nate." She finally spoke and looked at him. "It was all the stress at once. It was never meant to be."

"When did you find…"

"Find out I was pregnant? A couple of weeks ago. I was going to come back to Boston to tell you," She sniffled. "Now…" She started crying again. "I've lost our baby, Nate. I've lost… I'm sorry."

Nate soon took her in his arms. "Shush," He ran a hand up and down her back. "It's not your fault. It's okay. You're going to come back home and we're going to get through this."

She got free from his embrace. "I'm not going with you, Nate. Not yet"

He looked at her with his mouth open. "But… you can't stay alone. Not now."

"I still need to figure out some things about myself, about us. And I need to heal from this… alone," She whispered.

"This was both our lost, Sophie. Please, don't shut me out," He pleaded. He wasn't a man who cried but he had just lost a baby and he was losing the woman he loved and his eyes filled with tears.

"I'm sorry Nate."

He got up and walked out of there. Sophie started sobbing again and she wondered if with her last decision, she had lost him forever.

Nate stood there with his back against the closed door. He dried his eyes with the back of his hand and took a deep breath, composing himself before going to the rest of the team.

"How is she?" Tara went to him as soon as she saw him.

"She's resting." They all saw his red eyes but didn't say anything.

"Hardison, can you book a ticket home, please? I need to get back to Sam."

"What about us?" Parker asked. "Sophie?"

"If you and Tara can be there for Sophie the next couple of days, that would be great. I don't want her to be alone right now, but she won't let me…" He gulped, "She won't let me help her, so if you can make sure she gets to London safely."

"She's not coming back to Boston with us?" Parker asked, sulking.

"Not yet. Eliot, Hardison, you can go wherever you want. We've all got the next few weeks off."

"I'm coming with you." Eliot told him, making sure he understood the offer was not up for negotiation.

"Yeah, me too, man"

"Guys, really…" He waved them off.

"We're not leaving you alone, so let's get our stuff from the hotel and get the hell out of this country"

Nate gave them a small smile of gratitude. " I need one last favour from you"

"What?"

"Help me stop drinking again." He told them firmly. The easy way out now to drown his pain was to find the first bottle of scotch and drink it until he passed out. But he wanted to get better again, better for his son, and to be strong for when Sophie would eventually decide to come back. "The next 24 hours are going to be hell," He muttered.


	14. Chapter 14

Two weeks later Nate was fourteen days sober. It took him awhile to get all the alcohol out of his system, but thankfully this time he hadn't been alone. Eliot had helped him to get through the bad moments where he would have done anything for a drop of alcohol.

He was preparing breakfast for him and Sam. Since he was sober again things between them were slightly better. There was still the Sophie-is-missing question, but that was something he still couldn't resolve. He put on the TV to listen to the news.

"The shooting took place early this morning and the circumstances are still unclear. The victim, Lieutenant Bonanno of State Police, is still in surgery because of his injuries."

Nate stopped flipping the pancakes and listened carefully at the news.

"That's Tommy's Dad!" Sam sat at the his usual place at the kitchen table. Tommy was one of his class mates. He was actually one of the few he liked.

"Yeah," Nate whispered, concerned. In different occasion they had worked with Patrick Bonanno. They gave him the evidence and he made sure the right people got arrested and stay behind bars.

They ate breakfast in silence. "Let's get going. I'll take you to school and then I'll go see what's going on at the hospital." Nate got up and took the car keys from the counter and they both made their way out of the apartment.

"Mrs. Bonanno" Nate carefully approached the woman standing in the hall watching her husband laying on the hospital bed through a window. It was such a familiar image in his mind. For a moment he saw Maggie looking at their son years before.

"Yes?" She turned her head and recognized him. "Sam's father, Nathan Ford."

"Yeah, I've occasionally worked with your husband too… I'm in the private sector."

"Yeah, he sometimes mentioned you. He didn't know if he should have invite you for a drink or arrest you"

He smirked. "Yeah, I have that effect on people. I'd really like to help… Uh, can you tell me if there are any leads?"

"No, it was his day off. He said he was going run an errand and come right home."

"Was he working on a case?"

"He didn't really talk about his job," She shook her head. "Sorry, I can't…"

"Yeah," He looked at Bonanno's son, Tommy, sitting on a bench and looking straight ahead of him. "If you and Tommy need anything, Sam and I are just a call away."

"Thanks"

Nate made his way out of the hospital and called the team. He sat in the car and sighed deeply. He stared at his phone in his hand and after a minute of pondering his decision he finally made the call. He waited as the line kept ringing.

"Come on, Sophie, pick up," He murmured. "I need you."

The call went to voice mail and he closed the phone in frustration and drove off.

Back at the apartment, the mastermind had trouble to convince the team to take the job.

"Well, you know what?! I don't care! I don't care about that! This guy dedicated his life to doing the right thing! And this is his payback? I mean, his family's pain is what he deserves? If we don't settle the score on this, why do we do this? Do you understand?" He shouted at them.

"Bonanno was looking into government corruption," Eliot hissed. "You know how dangerous that is. The guys who shot Bonanno used military grade weaponry."

"Guys, we can do this!"

Hardison looked skeptical. "We need to find the evidence that Bonanno collected."

"Okay. You, Parker and Eliot work on that while Tara and I bring our mark on the hook"

"Who's that?"

"Mayor Brad Culpepper III"

They worked on the con and got the mayor attention with his dream of creating a stadium and bringing a team into his town. The team was watching Eliot having fun as a baseball player. Since he's a great baseball fan, Nate brought Sam too for an afternoon at the stadium. Thanks to Eliot, he went to the field a threw a couple of balls with the players and he also went in the changing rooms and took many souvenirs home.

Culpepper III called Nate, telling the details of the time and place to meet for the money exchange. The team was going to bring him down for that corruption, also thanks to Bonanno's evidence they've found.

Nate was setting the last minute details in the pub when the door opened.

"Hello Nate."

"Sterling? You've got some nerve to show up here after what you did to us in Kiev. How's life as an Interpol agent going?"

"Nate, I know about your meeting with Culpeper. It's not going to work. There's someone else behind this."

"What are you talking about?"

Sterling threw him a file, which Nate caught and opened. "Who's Tony Kadjic?"

"He's an arms dealer. His specialty is buying cheap guns from Third World countries and reselling them."

"And he's connected to Belbridge how?"

"The fact that the mayor is scamming on all those 9/11 funds and makes his ports a perfect place for Kadjic to run his guns in and out of the country. The mayor gives you to the FBI and he keeps them away from Kadjic. The moment you show up in that warehouse, FBI agents will have the place surrounded."

"Why are you telling me this?"

"Because you're the person I need to bring Kadjic to justice."

"The last time we helped you, things didn't really go according to plan."

"Why? You've got Sophie free and I got the Egg. A win-win for all of us."

Nate still wasn't convinced.

"He's being following you."

"Kadjic?"

"Yes, and he knows about Sam." He told him. "He's not going to stop at anything."

"I need to keep Sam safe."

"We can do that. I can have agents keeping an eye on him at all time. What I need from you is to take the job."

Reluctantly Nate nodded.

"Okay, you continue with your plan and I'll take care of the FBI." He smiled satisfied." And Nate?" He turned around. "No games or I'm going to arrest the rest of your so called Robin Hood crew."

Nate just glared at him as the agent walked out of the pub the same way he came in.

He didn't know what to do. Should he tell the team about Sterling's threat? Eliot will certainly notice the agents following Sam around. There was only one person who could point him into the right direction. He tried calling her again. This time she picked up.

"Nate?"

"Sophie?"

She could hear the distress in his voice. "What's wrong Nate?" She asked worriedly.

"It's all a mess here Sophie, I don't know what to do." He ran his hand through his hair and looked at the bottles of alcohol standing behind the bar.

"Are you in the pub right now?"

He nodded even though she couldn't see him. "Yes," He whispered hoarsely

"You need to get out of there. Walk out Nate, I'll be here the whole time."

He slowly walked towards the back of the pub and took the elevator going up his apartment floor. "Thanks."

"Anytime," She smiled

"I… I need…" he gulped "I need you, okay" he finally let out. "I need you to come back, Sophie."

"Nate…"

"I understand why you had to leave, but you can't find yourself traveling around the world or hiding in London. You find yourself with the people that love you."

"It still hurts. Losing our…"

"I know. You don't think it affected me too." He sighed. "As much as you're feeling lost right now, I'm feeling that too… without you. With you I've always known who I was, what I was doing, but… I just don't know what to do… And you've always been my compass." He was sitting on the floor of the elevator. He had reached the floor a long time ago, but he couldn't move. He heard her sobbing on the other end. "Maybe we can find each other together. I…" He took a deep breath. "I love you Sophie, please come back home."

"Okay," She managed to say in between her cries. "I'll be on the first plane out."

"Thanks."

"And Nate…" there was a pause "I love you too."


	15. Chapter 15

The next day Nate informed the team what was going on.

"Let me get this right!" Eliot shouted at him. "You want to walk in a warehouse to meet a corrupted snitch even though the place will be crawling with FBI agents."

"Sterling said he would to take care of them."

"And we just have to trust the guy?!"

"He needs us to gather the evidence linking Kadjic to the guns, he won't play us," He assured them.

"I don't like it," Tara shook her head. "You don't mess around cops. They're fine dealing with a corrupted mayor and having an arms dealer in the country? That's fine by me. If they don't care, why should I?"

"I'm with Tara on this one," Hardison agreed.

"Listen!" Nate exclaimed. "This is not about Culpepper or Kadjic or even Sterling. This is about finishing the work that a good cop started. We will be ahead of them at all times." He nodded. "Tara, you call someone and tell them you want to set a meeting with Kadjic."

"What? Who's going to meet him?"

"Annie Kroy," He smiled.

"Annie Kroy?" Parker eyes lit up.

"Sophie is coming back," He confirmed.

So they put the plan in motion. Nate and Tara went to meet Culpepper at the warehouse. The mayor was trying to frame them so he could have someone to turn to the FBI. Eliot, Parker and Hardison created a diversion so that Nate and Tara could escape and kidnap the mayor. Like he promised, Sterling was distracting the FBI while they were still wondering how their informant disappeared. With some intimidation they managed to make Culpepper talk and record everything for evidence. One corrupted mayor was in the bag. Now they needed to go after Kadjic. Sophie sent a text massage to Tara telling her she was on ship named the Maltese Falcone and that she was making a deal with Kadjic.

"Okay, guys. Eliot and I are going to the Maltese Falcone. Hardison, you make your show believable."

The hacker grinned and turned on the drill. "I'm on it."

"Tara and Parker, for you I have another job," He smirked.

On the ship deck everything was going according to plan. They made it seem like Hardison killed Culpepper and Kadjic was about to include them as his partners. They went below deck and saw Sophie. They were professional grifters so they managed to make it look like they didn't know each other, but Nate couldn't help but linger his eyes on her more than he needed. He had missed her and that was the first time he had seen her since that day at the hospital.

Kadjic got a call and after he finished it he turned pointing his gun at Nate ready to shoot him. Sophie managed to talk him out of it telling him that she didn't want to be charged as an accessory. It bought Nate some time, but he was wondering what had gone wrong with their plan.

At the other side of the port, in a container where they were keeping the mayor locked, Hardison got distracted by arranging Sam's escape from the Interpol agents that were following him. It was all Brad Culpepper needed to cut the ropes that were holding him on the chair and hit Hardison unconscious so he could call Kadjic. Hardison woke up a few minutes later with a big headache. He ran towards the ship, once there he picked up a giant wrench and made his way below deck. He saw Eliot fighting some guards and helped him by knocking one of them in the head with his new favourite toy.

"Sophie!" They saw the woman walked pass them.

She smiled back at them. "Let's go. We need to get Nate and get out of here. We don't have much time."

They freed Nate who was locked up in one of the cabins.

"Sophie," He smiled at her. He so wanted to kiss her and have her in his arms. She had finally come back to him.

"Later Nate," She smiled back. "We need to go."

According to plan, Sam should have been safe with Tara by now, waiting for their arrival at the airport. The guys went to the bridge to trap Kadjic inside so Sterling could come and arrest him. Eliot and Hardison worked on one side of the door while Nate had trouble closing the other one. It gave enough time to Kadjic to start shooting and one bullet hit Nate on his side. When the door finally closed the team was ready for their escape.

"Come on!" Sophie urged them. "I've got an helicopter waiting…"

Soon they were surrounded by FBI and Interpol agents.

"Well, bravo!" They heard clapping coming from behind a container.

"Sterling!" Nate hissed. "We had a deal. Kadjic and the guns are inside."

"Yes, well except I don't make deals with thieves," He smirked. "Arrest them all," He ordered at the agents.

"Sterling," Eliot hissed, "I'm going to get you for this."

"You probably don't want to do that," Nate kept his eyes on Sterling. He was holding a hand on his side, pressing it against the bullet wound. He could feel the blood flowing and he wasn't going to be able to stay on his feet for long.

"And why is that?"

"Because in this moment there's a fire in the FBI evidence room destroying all your evidence." He smirked "Oh, and I also told Hardison to wipe the servers. So in this moment you have nothing against them. Nothing."

Sterling glared at him. "What do you want? I know you must have a backup copy somewhere. You believe in justice so you wouldn't just let them go."

"You let them go and I stay here for leverage and once I'm sure of they're safe they will send you the backup file." He leaned against the railing.

"Nate, what?" The others looked at him in disbelief.

"Stick to the plan, man." The plan was for them to all get away from it. Nate had the feeling that Sterling wasn't going to keep his end of the deal, so he come up with this last minute plan to make sure they got away.

"Nate," Sophie whispered to him and put her hand on his shoulder as she got closer.

"I'm not going to be able to make it with you," He hissed. He looked down and Sophie saw his hand covered in blood. She gasped and he shook his head not wanting the others to know.

"So, have we got a deal!" He shouted at Sterling.

The Interpol agent nodded. "We have a deal."

Nate looked at Hardison, Eliot and Parker who still hadn't moved. "Get away from here, now!"

"We're not leaving you here, Nate!" Parker protested.

"It's for the best. You keep an eye on everything."

They shook their head in anger, but also disappointed that their mastermind was leaving them.

Nate looked back at Sophie. "You take care of Sam for me, okay?" He gave her a small smile.

"Nate… I …" she was still in shock. This was not the plan. They were both supposed to get away, be together, be a family.

Nate bent his head down and kissed her passionately. By the time they separated tears were rolling down her face and Nate leaned his forehead against hers.

"I'll be okay, Sophie. You know me, there's always a plan," He whispered to her.

She nodded before letting him go and following the others to the helicopter. The last image they saw before flying away was Nate collapsing on the ship deck and agents surrounding him in panic.

"He was hit," Hardison whispered. "That's why he didn't come with us."

"Yeah," Sophie nodded, still crying.

"What are we going to tell Sam?" Parker asked.

"That we're going to get his father back." Eliot looked the ship becoming smaller and smaller as the helicopter flew further away.

THE END


End file.
